1---It is a wise father that knows his own child, but today a man can boost his paternal (fatherly) wisdom——or at least confirm that he’s the kid’s dad. All he needs to do is shell out $30 for paternity testing kit (PTK) at his local drugstore——and another $120 to get the results.

再聪明的父亲也未必了解自己的孩子，但是如今男人可以提升其为人之父的智慧，至少可以确认他是孩子的父亲。他所要做的就是在当地药店里支付30美元买一个父子关系检测试剂盒（PTK），然后另支付120美元以获得该测试的各项结果。

注 1. 第一句话为什么这么翻译，请看： http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4982ed5c0100dumb.html

      2.  kit 对于医学专业的习惯翻译是：试剂盒，这里加上“检测”是为了体现testing一词。

2---More than 60,000 people have purchased the PTKs since they first become available without prescriptions last year, according to Doug Fog, chief operating officer of Identigene, which makes the over-the-counter kits. More than two dozen companies sell DNA tests directly to the public, ranging in price from a few hundred dollars to more than $2500.

Doug Fogg是Identigene (生产这种在药店可以出售的测试包的公司)的首席运营官，他说，自从去年PTK不需要处方就能购买以来，已经有超过6万人购买了该产品。超过24家公司直接向公众提供DNA检测服务，价格从几百美元到2500多美元不等。

 

3---Among the most popular: paternity and kinship testing, which adopted children can use to find their biological relatives and families can use to track down kids put up for adoption. DNA testing is also the latest rage among passionate genealogists——and supports businesses that offer to search for a family’s geographic roots.

其中最受欢迎的是父子和血缘关系检测，被收养的孩子可以利用它找到自己的有血缘关系的亲属，而家庭也可以用它来找到被人收养的孩子。DNA检测也得到了许多热心的家谱学专家的推崇，还为那些寻找家族地域根源的服务公司提供了支持。

 

4---Most tests require collecting cells by swabbing saliva in the mouth and sending it to the company for testing. All tests require a potential candidate with whom to compare DNA.

多数测试需要从口腔唾液中获取细胞，并将唾液送至公司进行检测。所有的测试都需要一个潜在的对照者，以便进行DNA对比。

 

5---But some observers are skeptical. “There is a kind of false precision being hawked by people claiming they are doing ancestry testing,” says Trey Duster, a New York University sociologist. He notes that each individual has many ancestors——numbering in the hundreds just a few centuries back. Yet most ancestry testing only considers a single lineage, either the Y chromosome inherited through men in a father’s line or mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down only from mothers. This DNA can reveal genetic information about only one or two ancestors, even though, for example, just three generations back people also have six other great-grandparents or, four generations back, 14 other great-great-grandparents.

但是，一些观察家们持怀疑态度。纽约大学的社会学家Troy Duster说，“那些声称可以进行血统测试的人在散播一种虚假的精确信息”。他注意到每个人都有许多祖先，仅几个世纪以前就有好几百个。但是大多数血统检测只考虑单一的血统，要么只考虑来自父亲的男性遗传Y染色体，要么只考虑遗传自母亲的线粒体DNA。举个例子来说，即使人们仅仅上溯到3代前，那就有6个旁系的曾祖父母，或者如果上溯到4代以前，那就有多达14个旁系的曾曾祖父母，但DNA却只能显示一两个祖先的基因信息。

 

6---Critics also argue that commercial genetic testing is only as good as the reference collections to which a sample is compared. Databases used by some companies don’t rely on data collected systematically but rather lump together information from different research projects. This means that a DNA database may have a lot of data from some regions and not others, so a person’s test results may differ depending on the company that processes the results. In addition, the computer programs a company uses to estimate relationships may be patented and not subject to peer review or outside evaluation.

        批评家们还认为，商业性基因检测的过程实际上就是用样本与参考数据库进行比对的过程。一些公司使用的数据库里的数据并非系统收集所得，而是将不同研究项目的信息整合在一起。这意味某个DNA数据库可能会从某些地区收集到很多信息，而别的地区却没有收集到任何信息，所以一个人的测试结果会随着测试公司的不同而不同。此外，公司用来评估血缘关系的软件程序可能是其专利，所以这些软件缺乏同类比较或外界评估。

 注：as good as 有两个常见意思：1. 和…（几乎）一样   2. 实际上

比如：It was as good as new. 这几乎像新的一样。

 

26. In paragraphs 1 and 2 , the text shows PTK’s __________.

[A] easy availability.

[B] flexibility in pricing.

[C] successful promotion.

[D] popularity with households. （A）

文章1、2段说明了PTK的__________.

[A] 容易得到

[B] 定价灵活

[C] 成功推广

[D] 受家庭欢迎

 

27. PTK is used to __________.

[A] locate one’s birth place.

[B] promote genetic research.

[C] identify parent-child kinship.

[D] choose children for adoption. （C）

PTK用于__________.

[A] 确定人们的出生地

[B] 促进基因研究

[C] 确认亲子关系

[D] 选择孩子来收养

28. Skeptical observers believe that ancestry testing fails to __________.

[A] trace distant ancestors.

[B] rebuild reliable bloodlines.

[C] fully use genetic information.

[D] achieve the claimed accuracy. （D）

持怀疑态度的评论家认为血统测试不能__________.

[A] 追踪遥远的祖先

[B] 重建可靠的血缘谱系

[C] 充分利用基因信息

[D] 获得所声称的精确性

 

29. In the last paragraph, a problem commercial genetic testing faces is __________.

[A] disorganized data collection.

[B] overlapping database building.

[C] excessive sample comparison.

[D] lack of patent evaluation. （A）

根据文章最后一段，商业化的基因测试所面临的一个问题是__________.

[A] 不系统的数据收集

[B] 重复性的数据库建设

[C] 过度的样本对比

[D] 缺少专利评估

 

30. An appropriate title for the text is most likely to be __________.

[A] Fors and Againsts of DNA Testing 

[B] DNA Testing and It’s Problems

[C] DNA Testing Outside the Lab     

[D] Lies behind DNA Testing （B）

最适合作为文章标题的是__________.

[A] 基因检测的认同与反对

[B] 基因检测与面临的问题

[C] 实验室外的基因检测

[D] 基因检测背后的谎言