Agree that the second translation conveys the message more clearly, but also used a lot more words. 還是中文原文言簡意賅。一個在美國出生的華人孩子能把這句話翻成英文巧妙地用到麵試裏,中文基礎太厲害了!
For some reason, this story is unbelievable - yes, you can understand either way:-).
Anyway, the fishing part is probably not a good idea to include in a college app assay, as it will get lost in translation.