优美英文短文

第一篇：优美英文短文

优美英文短文

nsiderable value Everybody should read it.It supplies us with a variety of news every day.of reading the newspaper, we shall(will)get enough knowledge to cope with our circu它每天提供我们各种类类的消息。它告诉我们世界政治局势。如果我们养成看报的习惯，我们就能得到足够的知识一两个小时来看报。哪些，他们不但能增加知识而且也能赶上时代。总而言之，看报对学生很有益处。

---------monotonous, I try hard to adapt myself to it.Why? Because I intend to be a good stude.After I wash my face and brush my teeth, I begin to review my lessons.I go to schooe.We usually have supper at seven o’clock.want to finish it before I go to bed.去适应它。为什么？因为我打算做一个好学生，希望将来为国家服务。

课，七点钟我就去上学。

餐，之后我就开始做家庭作业，希望在睡觉前把它做完。

---------dent? Of course not.So far as I know, everybody intends to be(become)a model studen no means an easy thing.First, he must do his best to obtain knowledge.A man without sufve his health.Only a strong man can do great tasks.Thirdly, he should receive moral edus with him.每个人都打算做模范学生。

力获得知识（求知）。一个没有足够知识的人是不会成功的。第二，他必须记住促进健康。只有强壮的人才能做大

---------何获得快乐

is the most precious thing in the world.Without it, life will be empty and meanttention to the following two points.appiness(the key to happiness).Only a strong man can enjoy the pleasure of lifcontentment.A man who is dissatisfied with his present condition is always in d人生将是空虚的而且毫无意义的。如果你希望知道如何获得快乐，你须注意下面两点。

受人生的乐趣。

痛苦之中。

---------o learn life, truth, science and many other useful things.They increase our knowledgey are our good teachers and wise friends.This is the reason why our parents always ent pay great attention to the choice of books.It is true that we can derive benefits f学以及其它许多有用的东西。它们增加我们的知识，扩大我们的心胸并加强我们的品格。换句话说，它们是我们的。不错，我们能从好书中获得益处。然而，坏书却对我们有害无益。

(made)me take my little young brother to the a trip to the country.She bade me take d, the sun was shining brightly and the breeze was blowing gently.We saw the beautifulir sweet songs on the trees.The scenery was indeed very pretty(beautiful).me.We saw Mother(our mother)wait(waiting)for us at the door.历。她吩咐我要好好照料他。

着，微风轻轻地吹着。我们看见美丽的花儿对我们微笑着，并听见鸟儿在树上唱着悦耳的歌曲，风景实十分美丽。们看见母样正在门口等候我们。

---------------make the country rich and powerful(To make the country rich and strong is...).In order consider this an unchangeable truth.(be patriotic)? I find my answer very simple and clear.He must study hard and store upudent can do according to what I said, the country will certainly be rich and powerful目的，必须爱国。我认为这是一条不易的定理。

明了。他必须用功读书并积储知识以便将来服务国家。如果每个学生能按照我所说的去做，国家一定会富强。

---------y.I consider it(this)wrong.Why? Because we all know that we can earn money be work bay(can)say that time is more valuable than money.of time.It(this)is indeed a great pity.We must bear(keep)in mind that wasting ti不对的。为什么？因为我们大家都知道我们能够用工作赚钱，但无论如何却无法把时间争取回来。基于此种理由，必须记住浪费时间等于浪费生命。

---------么我们要学英文

y English, my answer will be simple and clear.Now let me enumerate the reasons one bycome an international language.If you know English, you van make a trip round the wor books, newspapers and magazines are written in English.If you wish(hope)to get kno复很简单明了。现在让我来把我的理由一一列举在下面：

可以环游世界不会被人误解。

写的。如果你希望获得知识，你必须学习英文。

---------classmates sent me presents.Mother prepared a tea party for me.I invited all of thex.There were cold drinks and refreshments.We ate, talked and laughed.We felt that we

g, the clock on the wall struck nine.We could not but say “Good-bye” to one another礼。母亲给我准备一个茶会。我邀请他们都前来参加。

吃又谈又笑。我们觉得是世界上最快乐的人。

我们不得不互道再见。

第二篇：罗素(优美,励志英文短文)

What I Have Lived For

——The Prologue to Bertrand Russell's Autobiography

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy-ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy.I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss.I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined.This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.With equal passion I have sought knowledge.I have wished to understand the hearts of men.I have wished to know why the stars shine.And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux.A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens.But always pity brought me back to earth.Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart.Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.This has been my life.I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.我的人生追求 对爱情的渴望，对知识的追求，对人类苦难不可遏制的同情，是支配我一生的单纯而强烈的三种感情。这些感情如阵阵飓风，吹拂在我动荡不定的生涯中，有时甚至吹过深沉痛苦的海

洋，直抵绝望的边缘。

我所以追求爱情有三方面的原因。首先，爱情有时给我带来狂喜，这种狂喜竟如此有力，以致使我常常会为了体验几小时的爱的喜悦，而宁愿牺牲生命中其他的一切。其次，爱情可以摆脱孤寂——身历那种可怕孤寂的人的战栗意识有时会由世界的边缘，观察到冷酷无生命的无底深渊。最后，在爱的结合中，我看到了古今圣贤以及诗人们所梦想的天堂的缩影，这正是我所追寻的人生境界。虽然它对一般的人类生活也许太美好，但这正是我透过爱情所得到的最终发现。

我曾以同样的感情追求知识，我渴望去了解人类的心灵，也渴望知道星星为什么会发光，同时我还想理解数字赖以支配千变万化的毕达哥拉斯力量。在这方面我有所收获，然所获不多。爱情与知识的可及领域，总是引领我到天堂的境界，可对人类苦难的同情却经常把我带回现实世界。那些痛苦的呼唤经常在我内心深处激起回响，饥饿中的孩子，被压迫被折磨着，给子女造成重担的孤苦无依的老人，以及全球无情的孤独、贫穷和痛苦的存在，是对人类生活理想的无视和讽刺。我常常希望能尽自己的微薄之力去减轻这不必要的痛苦，但我发现我完

全失败了，因此我自己也感到很痛苦。

这就是我的一生，我发现它是值得活的。如果有谁再给我一次生活的机会，我将欣然接受这

难得的赐予。

第三篇：新概念优美英文背诵短文50篇

Unit1:The Language of Music A painter hangs his or her finished pictures on a wall, and everyone can see it.A composer writes a work, but no one can hear it until it is performed.Professional singers and players have great responsibilities, for the composer is utterly dependent on them.A student of music needs as long and as arduous a training to become a performer as a medical student needs to become a doctor.Most training is concerned with technique, for musicians have to have the muscular proficiency of an athlete or a ballet dancer.Singers practice breathing every day, as their vocal chords would be inadequate without controlled muscular support.String players practice moving the fingers of the left hand up and down, while drawing the bow to and fro with the right arm—two entirely different movements.Singers and instruments have to be able to get every note perfectly in tune.Pianists are spared this particular anxiety, for the notes are already there, waiting for them, and it is the piano tuner’s responsibility to tune the instrument for them.But they have their own difficulties;the hammers that hit the string have to be coaxed not to sound like percussion, and each overlapping tone has to sound clear.This problem of getting clear texture is one that confronts student conductors: they have to learn to know every note of the music and how it should sound, and they have to aim at controlling these sound with fanatical but selfless authority.Technique is of no use unless it is combined with musical knowledge and understanding.Great artists are those who are so thoroughly at home in the language of music that they can enjoy performing works written in any century.Unit2:Schooling and Education It is commonly believed in United States that school is where people go to get an education.Nevertheless, it has been said that today children interrupt their education to go to school.The distinction between schooling and education implied by this remark is important.Education is much more open-ended and all-inclusive than schooling.Education knows no bounds.It can take place anywhere, whether in the shower or in the job, whether in a kitchen or on a tractor.It includes both the formal learning that takes place in schools and the whole universe of informal learning.The agents of education can range from a revered grandparent to the people debating politics on the radio, from a child to a distinguished scientist.Whereas schooling has a certain predictability, education quite often produces surprises.A chance conversation with a stranger may lead a person to discover how little is known of other religions.People are engaged in education from infancy on.Education, then, is a very broad, inclusive term.It is a lifelong process, a process that starts long before the start of school, and one that should be an integral part of one’s entire life.Schooling, on the other hand, is a specific, formalized process, whose general pattern varies little from one setting to the next.Throughout a country, children arrive at school at approximately the same time, take assigned seats, are taught by an adult, use similar textbooks, do homework, take exams, and so on.The slices of reality that are to be learned, whether they are the alphabet or an understanding of the working of government, have usually been limited by the boundaries of the subject being taught.For example, high school students know that there not likely to find out in their classes the truth about political problems in their communities or what the newest filmmakers are experimenting with.There are definite conditions surrounding the formalized process of schooling.2

Unit3:The Defini tion of Price Prices determine how resources are to be used.They are also the means by which products and services that are in limited supply are rationed among buyers.The price system of the United States is a complex network composed of the prices of all the products bought and sold in the economy as well as those of a myriad of services, including labor, professional, transportation, and public-utility services.The interrelationships of all these prices make up the ―system‖ of prices.The price of any particular product or service is linked to a broad, complicated system of prices in which everything seems to depend more or less upon everything else.If one were to ask a group of randomly selected individuals to define ―price‖, many would reply that price is an amount of money paid by the buyer to the seller of a product or service or, in other words that price is the money values of a product or service as agreed upon in a market transaction.This definition is, of course, valid as far as it goes.For a complete understanding of a price in any particular transaction, much more than the amount of money involved must be known.Both the buyer and the seller should be familiar with not only the money amount, but with the amount and quality of the product or service to be exchanged, the time and place at which the exchange will take place and payment will be made, the form of money to be used, the credit terms and discounts that apply to the transaction, guarantees on the product or service, delivery terms, return privileges, and other factors.In other words, both buyer and seller should be fully aware of all the factors that comprise the total ―package‖ being exchanged for the asked-for amount of money in order that they may evaluate a given price.Unit4:Electricity The modern age is an age of electricity.People are so used to electric lights, radio, televisions, and telephones that it is hard to imagine what life would be like without them.When there is a power failure, people grope about in flickering candlelight, cars hesitate in the streets because there are no traffic lights to guide them, and food spoils in silent refrigerators.Yet, people began to understand how electricity works only a little more than two centuries ago.Nature has apparently been experimenting in this field for million of years.Scientists are discovering more and more that the living world may hold many interesting secrets of electricity that could benefit humanity.All living cell send out tiny pulses of electricity.As the heart beats, it sends out pulses of record;they form an electrocardiogram, which a doctor can study to determine how well the heart is working.The brain, too, sends out brain waves of electricity, which can be recorded in an electroencephalogram.The electric currents generated by most living cells are extremely small – often so small that sensitive instruments are needed to record them.But in some animals, certain muscle cells have become so specialized as electrical generators that they do not work as muscle cells at all.When large numbers of these cell are linked together, the effects can be astonishing.The electric eel is an amazing storage battery.It can seed a jolt of as much as eight hundred volts of electricity through the water in which it live.(An electric house current is only one hundred twenty volts.)As many as four-fifths of all the cells in the electric eel’s body are specialized for generating electricity, and the strength of the shock it can deliver corresponds roughly to length of its body.4

Unit5:The Beginning of Drama There are many theories about the beginning of drama in ancient Greece.The on most widely accepted today is based on the assumption that drama evolved from ritual.The argument for this view goes as follows.In the beginning, human beings viewed the natural forces of the world-even the seasonal changes-as unpredictable, and they sought through various means to control these unknown and feared powers.Those measures which appeared to bring the desired results were then retained and repeated until they hardened into fixed rituals.Eventually stories arose which explained or veiled the mysteries of the rites.As time passed some rituals were abandoned, but the stories, later called myths, persisted and provided material for art and drama.Those who believe that drama evolved out of ritual also argue that those rites contained the seed of theater because music, dance, masks, and costumes were almost always used, Furthermore, a suitable site had to be provided for performances and when the entire community did not participate, a clear division was usually made between the “acting area” and the “auditorium.” In addition, there were performers, and, since considerable importance was attached to avoiding mistakes in the enactment of rites, religious leaders usually assumed that task.Wearing masks and costumes, they often impersonated other people, animals, or supernatural beings, and mimed the desired effect-success in hunt or battle, the coming rain, the revival of the Sun-as an actor might.Eventually such dramatic representations were separated from religious activities.Another theory traces the theater's origin from the human interest in storytelling.According to this vies tales(about the hunt, war, or other feats)are gradually elaborated, at first through the use of impersonation, action, and dialogue by a narrator and then through the assumption of each of the roles by a different person.A closely related theory traces theater to those dances that are primarily rhythmical and gymnastic or that are imitations of animal movements and sounds.5

Unit6:Television Television-----the most pervasive and persuasive of modern technologies, marked by rapid change and growth-is moving into a new era, an era of extraordinary sophistication and versatility, which promises to reshape our lives and our world.It is an electronic revolution of sorts, made possible by the marriage of television and computer technologies.The word “television”, derived from its Greek(tele: distant)and Latin(visi sight)roots, can literally be interpreted as sight from a distance.Very simply put, it works in this way: through a sophisticated system of electronics, television provides the capability of converting an image(focused on a special photoconductive plate within a camera)into electronic impulses, which can be sent through a wire or cable.These impulses, when fed into a receiver(television set), can then be electronically reconstituted into that same image.Television is more than just an electronic system, however.It is a means of expression, as well as a vehicle for communication, and as such becomes a powerful tool for reaching other human beings.The field of television can be divided into two categories determined by its means of transmission.First, there is broadcast television, which reaches the masses through broad-based airwave transmission of television signals.Second, there is nonbroadcast television, which provides for the needs of individuals or specific interest groups through controlled transmission techniques.Traditionally, television has been a medium of the masses.We are most familiar with broadcast television because it has been with us for about thirty-seven years in a form similar to what exists today.During those years, it has been controlled, for the most part, by the broadcast networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS, who have been the major purveyors of news, information, and entertainment.These giants of broadcasting have actually shaped not only television but our perception of it as well.We have come to look upon the picture tube as a source of entertainment, placing our role in this dynamic medium as the passive viewer.6

Unit7:Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie, known as the King of Steel, built the steel industry in the United States, and , in the process, became one of the wealthiest men in America.His success resulted in part from his ability to sell the product and in part from his policy of expanding during periods of economic decline, when most of his competitors were reducing their investments.Carnegie believed that individuals should progress through hard work, but he also felt strongly that the wealthy should use their fortunes for the benefit of society.He opposed charity, preferring instead to provide educational opportunities that would allow others to help themselves.“He who dies rich, dies disgraced,” he often said.Among his more noteworthy contributions to society are those that bear his name, including the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh, which has a library, a museum of fine arts, and a museum of national history.He also founded a school of technology that is now part of Carnegie-Mellon University.Other philanthrophic gifts are the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to promote understanding between nations, the Carnegie Institute of Washington to fund scientific research, and Carnegie Hall to provide a center for the arts.Few Americans have been left untouched by Andrew Carnegie's generosity.His contributions of more than five million dollars established 2,500 libraries in small communities throughout the country and formed the nucleus of the public library system that we all enjoy today.7

Unit8:American Revolution The American Revolution was not a sudden and violent overturning of the political and social framework, such as later occurred in France and Russia, when both were already independent nations.Significant changes were ushered in, but they were not breathtaking.What happened was accelerated evolution rather than outright revolution.During the conflict itself people went on working and praying, marrying and playing.Most of them were not seriously disturbed by the actual fighting, and many of the more isolated communities scarcely knew that a war was on.America's War of Independence heralded the birth of three modern nations.One was Canada, which received its first large influx of English-speaking population from the thousands of loyalists who fled there from the United States.Another was Australia, which became a penal colony now that America was no longer available for prisoners and debtors.The third newcomer-the United States-based itself squarely on republican principles.Yet even the political overturn was not so revolutionary as one might suppose.In some states, notably Connecticut and Rhode Island, the war largely ratified a colonial self-rule already existing.British officials, everywhere ousted, were replaced by a home-grown governing class, which promptly sought a local substitute for king and Parliament.8

Unit9:Suburbanization If by “suburb” is meant an urban margin that grows more rapidly than its already developed interior, the process of suburbanization began during the emergence of the industrial city in the second quarter of the nineteenth century.Before that period the city was a small highly compact cluster in which people moved about on foot and goods were conveyed by horse and cart.But the early factories built in the 1840's were located along waterways and near railheads at the edges of cities, and housing was needed for the thousands of people drawn by the prospect of employment.In time, the factories were surrounded by proliferating mill towns of apartments and row houses that abutted the older, main cities.As a defense against this encroachment and to enlarge their tax bases, the cities appropriated their industrial neighbors.In 1854, for example, the city of Philadelphia annexed most of Philadelphia County.Similar municipal maneuvers took place in Chicago and in New York.Indeed, most great cities of the United States achieved such status only by incorporating the communities along their borders.With the acceleration of industrial growth came acute urban crowding and accompanying social stress-conditions that began to approach disastrous proportions when, in 1888, the first commercially successful electric traction line was developed.Within a few years the horse-drawn trolleys were retired and electric streetcar networks crisscrossed and connected every major urban area, fostering a wave of suburbanization that transformed the compact industrial city into a dispersed metropolis.This first phase of mass-scale suburbanization was reinforced by the simultaneous emergence of the urban Middle Class, whose desires for homeownership in neighborhoods far from the aging inner city were satisfied by the developers of single-family housing tracts.9

Unit10:Types of Speech Standard usage includes those words and expressions understood, used, and accepted by a majority of the speakers of a language in any situation regardless of the level of formality.As such, these words and expressions are well defined and listed in standard dictionaries.Colloquialisms, on the other hand, are familiar words and idioms that are understood by almost all speakers of a language and used in informal speech or writing, but not considered appropriate for more formal situations.Almost all idiomatic expressions are colloquial language.Slang, however, refers to words and expressions understood by a large number of speakers but not accepted as good, formal usage by the majority.Colloquial expressions and even slang may be found in standard dictionaries but will be so identified.Both colloquial usage and slang are more common in speech than in writing.Colloquial speech often passes into standard speech.Some slang also passes into standard speech, but other slang expressions enjoy momentary popularity followed by obscurity.In some cases, the majority never accepts certain slang phrases but nevertheless retains them in their collective memories.Every generation seems to require its own set of words to describe familiar objects and events.It has been pointed out by a number of linguists that three cultural conditions are necessary for the creation of a large body of slang expressions.First, the introduction and acceptance of new objects and situations in the society;second, a diverse population with a large number of subgroups;third, association among the subgroups and the majority population.Finally, it is worth noting that the terms “standard” “colloquial” and “slang” exist only as abstract labels for scholars who study language.Only a tiny number of the speakers of any language will be aware that they are using colloquial or slang expressions.Most speakers of English will, during appropriate situations, select and use all three types of expressions.10

Unit12:Museums From Boston to Los Angeles, from New York City to Chicago to Dallas, museums are either planning, building, or wrapping up wholesale expansion programs.These programs already have radically altered facades and floor plans or are expected to do so in the not-too-distant future.In New York City alone, six major institutions have spread up and out into the air space and neighborhoods around them or are preparing to do so.The reasons for this confluence of activity are complex, but one factor is a consideration everywhereor selling off-works of art has taken on new importance because of the museum's space problems.And increasingly, curators have been forced to juggle gallery space, rotating one masterpiece into public view while another is sent to storage.Despite the clear need for additional gallery and storage space, however,“ the museum has no plan, no plan to break out of its envelope in the next fifteen years,” according to Philadelphia Museum of Art's president.11

Unit14:A Rare Fossil Record The preservation of embryos and juveniles is a rate occurrence in the fossil record.The tiny, delicate skeletons are usually scattered by scavengers or destroyed by weathering before they can be fossilized.Ichthyosaurs had a higher chance of being preserved than did terrestrial creatures because, as marine animals, they tended to live in environments less subject to erosion.Still, their fossilization required a suite of factors: a slow rate of decay of soft tissues, little scavenging by other animals, a lack of swift currents and waves to jumble and carry away small bones, and fairly rapid burial.Given these factors, some areas have become a treasury of well-preserved ichthyosaur fossils.The deposits at Holzmaden, Germany, present an interesting case for analysis.The ichthyosaur remains are found in black, bituminous marine shales deposited about 190 million years ago.Over the years, thousands of specimens of marine reptiles, fish and invertebrates have been recovered from these rocks.The quality of preservation is outstanding, but what is even more impressive is the number of ichthyosaur fossils containing preserved embryos.Ichthyosaurs with embryos have been reported from 6 different levels of the shale in a small area around Holzmaden, suggesting that a specific site was used by large numbers of ichthyosaurs repeatedly over time.The embryos are quite advanced in their physical development;their paddles, for example, are already well formed.One specimen is even preserved in the birth canal.In addition, the shale contains the remains of many newborns that are between 20 and 30 inches long.Why are there so many pregnant females and young at Holzmaden when they are so rare elsewhere The quality of preservation is almost unmatched and quarry operations have been carried out carefully with an awareness of the value of the fossils.But these factors do not account for the interesting question of how there came to be such a concentration of pregnant ichthyosaurs in a particular place very close to their time of giving birth.12

Unit15:The Nobel Academy For the last 82years, Sweden's Nobel Academy has decided who will receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, thereby determining who will be elevated from the great and the near great to the immortal.But today the Academy is coming under heavy criticism both from the without and from within.Critics contend that the selection of the winners often has less to do with true writing ability than with the peculiar internal politics of the Academy and of Sweden itself.According to Ingmar Bjorksten , the cultural editor for one of the country's two major newspapers, the prize continues to represent “what people call a very Swedish exercise: reflecting Swedish tastes.”

The Academy has defended itself against such charges of provincialism in its selection by asserting that its physical distance from the great literary capitals of the world actually serves to protect the Academy from outside influences.This may well be true, but critics respond that this very distance may also be responsible for the Academy's inability to perceive accurately authentic trends in the literary world.Regardless of concerns over the selection process, however, it seems that the prize will continue to survive both as an indicator of the literature that we most highly praise, and as an elusive goal that writers seek.If for no other reason, the prize will continue to be desirable for the financial rewards that accompany it;not only is the cash prize itself considerable, but it also dramatically increases sales of an author's books.13 Unit16:The War between Britain and France In the late eighteenth century, battles raged in almost every corner of Europe, as well as in the Middle East, south Africa ,the West Indies, and Latin America.In reality, however, there was only one major war during this time, the war between Britain and France.All other battles were ancillary to this larger conflict, and were often at least partially related to its antagonist’ goals and strategies.France sought total domination of Europe.this goal was obstructed by British independence and Britain’s efforts throughout the continent to thwart Napoleon;through treaties.Britain built coalitions(not dissimilar in concept to today’s NATO)guaranteeing British participation in all major European conflicts.These two antagonists were poorly matched, insofar as they had very unequal strengths;France was predominant on land, Britain at sea.The French knew that, short of defeating the British navy, their only hope of victory was to close all the ports of Europe to British ships.Accordingly, France set out to overcome Britain by extending its military domination from Moscow t Lisbon, from Jutland to Calabria.All of this entailed tremendous risk, because France did not have the military resources to control this much territory and still protect itself and maintain order at home.French strategists calculated that a navy of 150 ships would provide the force necessary to defeat the British navy.Such a force would give France a three-to-two advantage over Britain.This advantage was deemed necessary because of Britain’s superior sea skills and technology because of Britain’s superior sea skills and technology, and also because Britain would be fighting a defensive war, allowing it to win with fewer forces.Napoleon never lost substantial impediment to his control of Europe.As his force neared that goal, Napoleon grew increasingly impatient and began planning an immediate attack.14

Unit17:Evolution of Sleep Sleep is very ancient.In the electroencephalographic sense we share it with all the primates and almost all the other mammals and birds: it may extend back as far as the reptiles.There is some evidence that the two types of sleep, dreaming and dreamless, depend on the life-style of the animal, and that predators are statistically much more likely to dream than prey, which are in turn much more likely to experience dreamless sleep.In dream sleep, the animal is powerfully immobilized and remarkably unresponsive to external stimuli.Dreamless sleep is much shallower, and we have all witnessed cats or dogs cocking their ears to a sound when apparently fast asleep.The fact that deep dream sleep is rare among pray today seems clearly to be a product of natural selection, and it makes sense that today, when sleep is highly evolved, the stupid animals are less frequently immobilized by deep sleep than the smart ones.But why should they sleep deeply at all Why should a state of such deep immobilization ever have evolved Perhaps one useful hint about the original function of sleep is to be found in the fact that dolphins and whales and aquatic mammals in genera seem to sleep very little.There is, by and large, no place to hide in the ocean.Could it be that, rather than increasing an animal’s vulnerability, the University of Florida and Ray Meddis of London University have suggested this to be the case.It is conceivable that animals who are too stupid to be quite on their own initiative are, during periods of high risk, immobilized by the implacable arm of sleep.The point seems particularly clear for the young of predatory animals.This is an interesting notion and probably at least partly true.15

Unit18:Modern American Universities Before the 1850’s, the United States had a number of small colleges, most of them dating from colonial days.They were small, church connected institutions whose primary concern was to shape the moral character of their students.Throughout Europe, institutions of higher learning had developed, bearing the ancient name of university.In German university was concerned primarily with creating and spreading knowledge, not morals.Between mid-century and the end of the 1800’s, more than nine thousand young Americans, dissatisfied with their training at home, went to Germany for advanced study.Some of them return to become presidents of venerable colleges-----Harvard, Yale, Columbia---and transform them into modern universities.The new presidents broke all ties with the churches and brought in a new kind of faculty.Professors were hired for their knowledge of a subject, not because they were of the proper faith and had a strong arm for disciplining students.The new principle was that a university was to create knowledge as well as pass it on, and this called for a faculty composed of teacher-scholars.Drilling and learning by rote were replaced by the German method of lecturing, in which the professor’s own research was presented in class.Graduate training leading to the Ph.D., an ancient German degree signifying the highest level of advanced scholarly attainment, was introduced.With the establishment of the seminar system, graduate student learned to question, analyze, and conduct their own research.At the same time, the new university greatly expanded in size and course offerings, breaking completely out of the old, constricted curriculum of mathematics, classics, rhetoric, and music.The president of Harvard pioneered the elective system, by which students were able to choose their own course of study.The notion of major fields of study emerged.The new goal was to make the university relevant to the real pursuits of the world.Paying close heed to the practical needs of society, the new universities trained men and women to work at its tasks, with engineering students being the most characteristic of the new regime.Students were also trained as economists, architects, agriculturalists, social welfare workers, and teachers.18现代美国大学

19世纪50年代以前美国有一些小的学院，大多数成立于殖民时期。它们是与教会挂钩的小机构，主要目的是培养学生的道德品行。当时在欧洲各地，高等教育机构已经发展起来，用的是一个古老的名称--大学。

德国已经发展出一种不同类型的大学。德国大学关心的主要是创造知识和传播知识，而不是道德教育。从世纪中叶到世纪末，有9000多名美国青年因不满国内所受的教育而赴德深造。他们中的一些人回国后成为一些知名学府--哈佛、耶鲁、哥伦比亚的校长并且把这些学府转变成了现代意义的大学。

新校长们断绝了和教会的关系，聘请了新型的教职员，聘用教授根据的是他们在学科方面的知识，而不是正确的信仰和约束学生的强硬手段。

新的原则是大学既要传播知识也要创造知识。这就需要由学者型老师组成教工队伍。靠死记硬背和做练习来学习的方法变为德国式的讲解方法。德 国式的讲解就是由教授讲授自己的研究课题。通过研究生性质的学习可以获得表明最高学术造诣的古老的德国学位--博士学位。

随着讨论课制度的建立，研究生们学会了提问、分析以及开展他们自己的研究。同时，新式大学学校规模和课程设臵完全突破了过去那种只

有数学、经典著作、美学和音乐的狭窄课程表。哈佛大学的校长率先推出选课制度，这样学生们就能选择自己的专业。主修领域的概念也出现了。新的目标是使大学对实际社会更有用。

密切关注着社会上的实际需求，新的大学着意培养学生解决问题的能力。工程系学生成为新式教育体制下最典型的学生。学生们还被培训成为经济学家、建筑师、农学家、社会工作人员以及教师。

Unit19:Children s Numerical Skills people appear to born to compute.The numerical skills of children develop so early and so inexorably that it is easy to imagine an internal clock of mathematical maturity guiding their growth.Not long after learning to walk and talk, they can set the table with impress accuracy---one knife, one spoon, one fork, for each of the five chairs.Soon they are capable of nothing that they have placed five knives, spoons and forks on the table and, a bit later, that this amounts to fifteen pieces of silverware.Having thus mastered addition, they move on to subtraction.It seems almost reasonable to expect that if a child were secluded on a desert island at birth and retrieved seven years later, he or she could enter a second enter a second-grade mathematics class without any serious problems of intellectual adjustment.Of course, the truth is not so simple.This century, the work of cognitive psychologists has illuminated the subtle forms of daily learning on which intellectual progress depends.Children were observed as they slowly grasped-----or, as the case might be, bumped into-----concepts that adults take for quantity is unchanged as water pours from a short glass into a tall thin one.Psychologists have since demonstrated that young children, asked to count the pencils in a pile, readily report the number of blue or red pencils, but must be coaxed into finding the total.Such studies have suggested that the rudiments of mathematics are mastered gradually, and with effort.They have also suggested that the very concept of abstract numbers------the idea of a oneness，a twoness, a threeness that applies to any class of objects and is a prerequisite for doing anything more mathematically demanding than setting a table-----is itself far from innate 18

19儿童的数学能力

人似乎生来就会计算。孩子们使用数字的技能发展得如此之早和如此必然，很容易让人想象有一个内在的精确而成熟的数字钟在指导他们的成长。

孩子们在学会走路和说话后不久，就能以令人惊叹的准确布臵桌子--五把椅子前面分别摆上一把刀、一个汤匙、一把叉子。很快地，他们就能知道他们已在桌面上摆放了五把刀、五个汤匙、五把叉子。没有多久，他们就又能知道这些东西加起来总共是15把银餐具。

如此这般地掌握了加法之后，他们又转向减法。有一种设想几乎顺理成章，那就是，即使一个孩子一出生就被隔绝到荒岛

上，七年后返回世间，也能直接上小学二年级的数学课，而不会碰到任何智力调整方面的大麻烦。当然，事实并没有这么简单。

本世纪认知心理学家的工作已经揭示了智力发展所依赖的日常学习的微妙形式。他们观察到孩子们缓慢掌握那些成年人认为理所当然的概念的

过程，或者是孩子们偶然遇到这些概念的过程。他们也观察到孩子们拒绝承认某些常识的情况。比如：

孩子们拒绝承认当水从短而粗的瓶中倒入细而长的瓶子中时，水的数量没有变化。心理学家们而后又展示一个例子，即：让孩子们数一堆铅笔时，他们能顺利地报出蓝铅笔或红铅笔的数目，但却需诱导才能报出总的数目。此类研究表明：数学基础是经过逐渐努力后掌握的。

他们还表示抽象的数字概念，如可表示任何一类物品并且是在做比摆桌子有更高数学要求的任何事时都必备的一、二、三意识，远远不是天生就具备的。

Unit20:The History Significance of American Revolution The ways of history are so intricate and the motivations of human actions so complex that it is always hazardous to attempt to represent events covering a number of years, a multiplicity of persons, and distant localities as the expression of one intellectual or social movement;yet the historical process which culminated in the ascent of Thomas Jefferson to the presidency can be regarded as the outstanding example not only of the birth of a new way of life but of nationalism as a new way of life.The American Revolution represents the link between the seventeenth century, in which modern England became conscious of itself, and the awakening of modern Europe at the end of the eighteenth century.It may seem strange that the march of history should have had to cross the Atlantic Ocean, but only in the North American colonies could a struggle for civic liberty lead also to the foundation of a new nation.Here, in the popular rising against a ―tyrannical‖ government, the fruits were more than the securing of a freer constitution.They included the growth of a nation born in liberty by the will of the people, not from the roots of common descent, a geographic entity, or the ambitions of king or dynasty.With the American nation, for the first time, a nation was born, not in the dim past of history but before the eyes of the whole world.20

20美国革命的历史意义

历史的进程是如此错综复杂，人类行为的动机是如此令人费解，以至于想把那些时间跨度大，涉及人数多，空间范围广的事件描述成为一个智者或一场社会运动的表现的企图是危险的。

然而以托马斯•杰弗逊登上总统宝座为高潮的那一段历史过程可以被视为一个特殊的例子。

在这段历史时期里不仅诞生了新的生活方式，而且民族主义成为了一种新的生活方式。美国独立战争成为联结17世纪现代英格兰的自我意识和18世纪末现代欧洲的觉醒的纽带。历史的行程需要跨越大西洋，这看起来似乎有些奇怪，但却只有在北美殖民地为民权和自由的斗争才能导致新国家的建立。

这里，反对“暴政”的民众起义的成果不仅是获得一个包含更多自由的宪法，还包括了一个依照人民的意愿诞生在自由中的国家的成长。这个国家不是基于血缘、地理、君主或王朝的野心。由于有了美国，第一次一个国家的诞生不是发生在历史模糊的过去，而是在全世界人们的眼前。

Unit21:The Origin of Sports When did sport begin If sport is, in essence, play, the claim might be made that sport is much older than humankind, for , as we all have observed, the beasts play.Dogs and cats wrestle and play ball games.Fishes and birds dance.The apes have simple, pleasurable games.Frolicking infants, school children playing tag, and adult arm wrestlers are demonstrating strong, transgenerational and transspecies bonds with the universe of animals – past, present, and future.Young animals, particularly, tumble, chase, run wrestle, mock, imitate, and laugh(or so it seems)to the point of delighted exhaustion.Their play, and ours, appears to serve no other purpose than to give pleasure to the players, and apparently, to remove us temporarily from the anguish of life in earnest.Some philosophers have claimed that our playfulness is the most noble part of our basic nature.In their generous conceptions, play harmlessly and experimentally permits us to put our creative forces, fantasy, and imagination into action.Play is release from the tedious battles against scarcity and decline which are the incessant, and inevitable, tragedies of life.This is a grand conception that excites and provokes.The holders of this view claim that the origins of our highest accomplishments----liturgy, literature, and law----can be traced to a play impulse which, paradoxically, we see most purely enjoyed by young beasts and children.Our sports, in this rather happy, nonfatalistic view of human nature, are more splendid creations of the nondatable, transspecies play impulse.22

21体育的起源

体育运动开始于何时如果体育运动的本质就是游戏的话，我们就可以宣称体育运动比人类古老，因为正如我们所观察到的，野兽也进行嬉戏。狗和猫会扭抱玩球，鱼和鸟翩翩起舞，猿类会进行一些简单的、愉快的游戏。雀跃的幼儿，捉迷藏的学童和成年摔跤者展示出人与动物界的有力的跨越世代与物种的永恒的联系--特别是幼兽，它们翻筋斗、追逐、奔跑、扭打、模仿、嬉笑(或者看起来是)，直到愉快地精疲力尽。他们的玩耍，同我们的一样，似乎并没有别的目的而只是给游戏者以愉悦，暂时把我们从严肃生活的痛苦中拉出来。一些哲学家称我们的嬉戏是我们本质中最崇高的部分。

依他们这些随意性很大的见解，游戏无害而且实验性地允许我们的创造力、幻想和想象发挥作用。游戏让人们从永不间断亦不可避免的生活悲剧-与乏匮和衰退进行的枯燥抗争中得到一种解脱。这是一个令人兴奋、给人启发的伟大见解。这种见解的持有者宣称，我们的最高成就如宗教典礼、文学、法律的起源可以追溯到游戏的冲动。但令人不解的是我们看到只有幼兽和小孩子才最纯粹地享受着这种冲动。从这种比较豁达和非宿命的人性观来看，我们的运动是超时代、跨物种的辉煌的创造。

Unit22:Collectibles Collectibles have been a part of almost every culture since ancient times.Whereas some objects have been collected for their usefulness, others have been selected for their aesthetic beauty alone.In the United States, the kinds of collectibles currently popular range from traditional objects such as stamps, coins, rare books, and art to more recent items of interest like dolls, bottles, baseball cards, and comic books.Interest in collectibles has increased enormously during the past decade, in part because some collectibles have demonstrated their value as investments.Especially during cycles of high inflation, investors try to purchase tangibles that will at least retain their current market values.In general, the most traditional collectibles will be sought because they have preserved their value over the years, there is an organized auction market for them, and they are most easily sold in the event that cash is needed.Some examples of the most stable collectibles are old masters, Chinese ceramics, stamps, coins, rare books, antique jewelry, silver, porcelain, art by well-known artists, autographs, and period furniture.Other items of more recent interest include old photograph records, old magazines, post cards, baseball cards, art glass, dolls, classic cars, old bottles, and comic books.These relatively new kinds of collectibles may actually appreciate faster as short-term investments, but may not hold their value as long-term investments.Once a collectible has had its initial play, it appreciates at a fairly steady rate, supported by an increasing number of enthusiastic collectors competing for the limited supply of collectibles that become increasingly more difficult to locate.24

Unit23:Ford Although Henry Ford’s name is closely associated with the concept of mass production, he should receive equal credit for introducing labor practices as early as 1913 that would be considered advanced even by today’s standards.Safety measures were improved, and the work day was reduced to eight hours, compared with the ten-or twelve-hour day common at the time.In order to accommodate the shorter work day, the entire factory was converted from two to three shifts.In addition, sick leaves as well as improved medical care for those injured on the job were instituted.The Ford Motor Company was one of the first factories to develop a technical school to train specialized skilled laborers and an English language school for immigrants.Some efforts were even made to hire the handicapped and provide jobs for former convicts.The most widely acclaimed innovation was the five-dollar-a-day minimum wage that was offered in order to recruit and retain the best mechanics and to discourage the growth of labor unions.Ford explained the new wage policy in terms of efficiency and profit sharing.He also mentioned the fact that his employees would be able to purchase the automobiles that they produced – in effect creating a market for the product.In order to qualify for the minimum wage, an employee had to establish a decent home and demonstrate good personal habits, including sobriety, thriftiness, industriousness, and dependability.Although some criticism was directed at Ford for involving himself too much in the personal lives of his employees, there can be no doubt that, at a time when immigrants were being taken advantage of in frightful ways, Henry Ford was helping many people to establish themselves in America.25

23亨利•福特

尽管亨利•福特的名字和大生产的概念相连，但他在劳工保护上得到同样的赞誉，因为他早在1913年便实行了用今天的标准来衡量依然是先进的标准。安全措施得到改进，日工作时间从当时普遍的10或12小时减少到8小时。为了适应更短的日工作时间，整个工厂从双班变成了三班。而且，病假和改善了的工伤医疗得以制度化。福特汽车公司是最早建立技术学校来培训专门技工和为移民开设英语学校的工厂之一。公司甚至为雇佣残疾人和有前科的人而作出了一些努力。最受广泛称赞的革新是实行五美元一天的最低工资。其目的是招收和留住那些最好的技工并阻碍工会的发展。

福特从效率和利润分享的角度来解释这项新的工资政策。他也提到这样一个事实，他的员工可以买他们生产的汽车--这实际上是为其产品另开辟了一个市场。为了够资格得到最低工资，员工必须建立一个得体的家庭并显示出良好的个人习惯，包括节制、俭省、勤勉和可靠。虽然有人批评福特过多地干涉 了员工的私人生活，但毫无疑问，在移民们被用恶劣的方式剥削的时代，亨利•福特却帮助了许多人在美国扎下根来。

Unit25:Movie Music Accustomed though we are to speaking of the films made before 1927 as ―silent‖, the film has never been, in the full sense of the word, silent.From the very beginning, music was regarded as an indispensable accompaniment;when the Lumiere films were shown at the first public film exhibition in the United States in February 1896, they were accompanied by piano improvisations on popular tunes.At first, the music played bore no special relationship to the films;an accompaniment of any kind was sufficient.Within a very short time, however, the incongruity of playing lively music to a solemn film became apparent, and film pianists began to take some care in matching their pieces to the mood of the film.As movie theaters grew in number and importance, a violinist, and perhaps a cellist, would be added to the pianist in certain cases, and in the larger movie theaters small orchestras were formed.For a number of years the selection of music for each film program rested entirely in the hands of the conductor or leader of the orchestra, and very often the principal qualification for holding such a position was not skill or taste so much as the ownership of a large personal library of musical pieces.Since the conductor seldom saw the films until the night before they were to be shown(if indeed, the conductor was lucky enough to see them then), the musical arrangement was normally improvised in the greatest hurry.To help meet this difficulty, film distributing companies started the practice of publishing suggestions for musical accompaniments.In 1909, for example, the Edison Company began issuing with their films such indications of mood as ― pleasant‖, ―sad‖, ―lively‖.The suggestions became more explicit, and so emerged the musical cue sheet containing indications of mood, the titles of suitable pieces of music, and precise directions to show where one piece led into the next.Certain films had music especially composed for them.The most famous of these early special scores was that composed and arranged for D.W Griffith’s film Birth of a Nation, which was released in 1915.27 电影插曲

尽管我们习惯于将1927年以前的电影称为“无声电影”，但是就无声这个词完整的意义上来说，电影从未真正的无声过，从最初开始音乐就被视为必不可少的伴奏。当卢米埃尔的电影在1896年2月美国首届影片公映展览上放映的时候，影片便用当时的流行曲临场钢琴伴奏。最初，这些音乐伴奏与电影没有什么特别的关系，用什么曲子伴奏都行。但在很短的时间内，为一部庄重的影片演奏快活的音乐所产生的不协调感变得显而易见，因此钢琴家们开始注意将自己的作品与影片的情调结合起来。

随着影剧院在数量上与重要性上的不断增长，在一些场合，除了钢琴师外，还要加上小提琴师，或许还有一位大提琴师。较大的影剧院里还组成了小型的管弦乐队。在很长的时间内，为各部影片选择配乐完全掌握在乐队指挥或队长手中，而通常把持这种职位的资格不是技巧或鉴赏品味，而是拥有一个大的音乐作品的个人收藏。因为直到电影上映的前一天晚上乐队指挥才能看到影片(如果这个指挥真正有幸能够看到影片的话)，音乐安排通常是在非常匆忙的情况下临场进行的。为了解决以上的困难，电影发行公司开办了为音乐伴奏印制提示单的业务。例如1909年爱迪生公司开始将一些诸如“喜悦的”、“悲伤的”、“活泼的”之类表明影片情调特征的提示与影片一起发行。

这些提示逐渐变得更加具体，并且出现了包括影片情调说明、适用乐曲名称和乐曲转换点等内容的配乐说明单。某些影片拥有专门为其创作的音乐。这些早期特创乐谱中最著名的便是为D.W.格雷夫斯1915年上映的影片《一个国家的诞生》所创作的音乐。

Note: 美国通俗音乐分类： 1.Jazz;1)traditional jazz----a)blues, 代表人物：Billy Holiday b)ragtime(切分乐曲): 代表人物：Scott Joplin c)New Orleans jazz(= Dixieland jazz)eg: Louis Armstron d)swing eg: Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, etc.e)bop(=bebop, rebop)eg: Lester Young, Charlie Parker etc.28 2)modern jazz------a)cool jazz(=progressive jazz)高雅爵士乐。Eg: Kenny G.b)third-stream jazz.Eg: Charles Mingus, John Lewis.c)main stream jazz.d)avant-garde jazz.e)soul jazz.Eg: Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald

f)Latin jazz.2.gospel music 福音音乐，主要源于Nero spirituals.Eg.Dolly Parker, Mahalia Jackson 3.Country and Western music.Eg.John Denver, Tammy Wynette, Kenny Rogers, etc.4.Rock music-----------a)rock and roll eg: Elvis Prestley(US), the Beatles(UK.)

b)folk rock Eg: Bob Dylon, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, Lionel Riche etc.c)punk rock

d)acid rock

e)rock jazz eg: M.J.McLaughlin

f)Jurassic rock 5.Music for easy listening(i.e.light music)29 Unit26:International Business and Cross-cultural Communication The increase in international business and in foreign investment has created a need for executives with knowledge of foreign languages and skills in cross-cultural communication.Americans, however, have not been well trained in either area and, consequently, have not enjoyed the same level of success in negotiation in an international arena as have their foreign counterparts.Negotiating is the process of communicating back and forth for the purpose of reaching an agreement.It involves persuasion and compromise, but in order to participate in either one, the negotiators must understand the ways in which people are persuaded and how compromise is reached within the culture of the negotiation.In many international business negotiations abroad, Americans are perceived as wealthy and impersonal.It often appears to the foreign negotiator that the American represents a large multi-million-dollar corporation that can afford to pay the price without bargaining further.The American negotiator’s role becomes that of an impersonal purveyor of information and cash.In studies of American negotiators abroad, several traits have been identified that may serve to confirm this stereotypical perception, while undermining the negotiator’s position.Two traits in particular that cause cross-cultural misunderstanding are directness and impatience on the part of the American negotiator.Furthermore, American negotiators often insist on realizing short-term goals.Foreign negotiators, on the other hand, may value the relationship established between negotiators and may be willing to invest time in it for long-term benefits.In order to solidify the relationship, they may opt for indirect interactions without regard for the time involved in getting to know the other negotiator.30

国际商业和跨文化交流

国际贸易和海外投资的增加产生了对具有外语知识和跨文化交流技巧的经理的需求。然而，美国人在这两方面未得到良好的训练，因此没有在国际谈判中象他们的外国对手一样成功。谈判是为了达成协议而反复交流的过程。它包括说服和妥协。

但是为了去进行说服和妥协，谈判者必须懂得在谈判的文化中怎样说服人和怎样达成妥协。在国外的国际商务谈判中，美国人被视为富有和不带个人情感。在外国谈判者看来，似乎美国人代表着一个庞大的拥有数百万资财的大企业，不用进一步地讨价还价就能出得起价钱。

美国谈判者的角色变成了一个没有个人感情的信息及现金的供应者。对在国外的美国谈判者的研究中，我们找出了损害谈判者能力的几个特点，或许证实这个已成定式的看法。尤其引起跨文化误解的两个特点是美国谈判者的直截了当和缺乏耐心。此外，美国谈判者经常坚持实现短期目标，而外国的谈判者会珍视建立谈判者之间的联系并愿意为长期利益投入时间。

为了巩固这种联系，他们会选择非直接的交流而不计较投入用于了解对方的时间。明显地，价值观的不同和理解上的差异影响了谈判的结果和谈判者的成功与否。美国人要在国际商务谈判中扮演更为有效的角色，他们就必须投入更多的努力提高跨文化的理解力。

Unit27:Scientific Theories In science, a theory is a reasonable explanation of observed events that are related.A theory often involves an imaginary model that helps scientists picture the way an observed event could be produced.A good example of this is found in the kinetic molecular theory, in which gases are pictured as being made up of many small particles that are in constant motion.A useful theory, in addition to explaining past observations, helps to predict events that have not as yet been observed.After a theory has been publicized, scientists design experiments to test the theory.If observations confirm the scientist’s predictions, the theory is supported.If observations do not confirm the predictions, the scientists must search further.There may be a fault in the experiment, or the theory may have to be revised or rejected.Science involves imagination and creative thinking as well as collecting information and performing experiments.Facts by themselves are not science.As the mathematician Jules Henri Poincare said, ―Science is built with facts just as a house is built with bricks, but a collection of facts cannot be called science any more than a pile of bricks can be called a house.‖

Most scientists start an investigation by finding out what other scientists have learned about a particular problem.After known facts have been gathered, the scientist comes to the part of the investigation that requires considerable imagination.Possible solutions to the problem are formulated.These possible solutions are called hypotheses.In a way, any hypothesis is a leap into the unknown.It extends the scientist’s thinking beyond the known facts.The scientist plans experiments, performs calculations, and makes observations to test hypotheses.Without hypothesis, further investigation lacks purpose and direction.When hypotheses are confirmed, they are incorporated into theories.32

科学理论

在科学中，理论是对所观察到的相关事件的合理解释。理论通常包含一个虚构的模型，这个模型帮助科学家构想所观察到的事件是如何发生的。分子运动理论便是我们能找到的一个很好的例子。在这个理论中，气体被描绘成由许多不断运动的小颗粒组成。一个有用的理论，除了能够解释过去的观测，还有助于预测那些未被观测到的事件。一个理论公开后，科学家们设计实验来检验这个理论。如果观察证实了科学家的预言，这个理论则得到了验证。如果观察不能证实科学家的预言，科学家就必须进一步的研究。或许是实验存在错误，或许是这个理论必须被修改或抛弃。

科学家除了收集信息和操作实验外还需要想象能力和创/造性思维。事实本身并不是科学。正如数学家乔斯亨利波恩克尔所说：“科学建立在事实之上，就像房子用砖砌成一样。但事实的收集不能被称作科学，就像一堆砖不能被叫作房子一样。

”多数科学家通过找出别的科学家在一个特定问题上的所知来开始研究。在收集了已知事实之后，科学家开始了研究中需要相当想像力的部分。他们尔后拟订对这个问题的可行的解决方法。这些可行的解决方式被称为假设。

在某种意义上，任何假设都是向未知的跳跃。它使科学家的思维超越已知事实。科学家计划实验、计算、观测以检验假定。若没有假设，进一步的研究便缺乏目的和方向。当假设被证实了，就成为理论的一部分。

Unit28:Changing Roles of Public Education One of the most important social developments that helped to make possible a shift in thinking about the role of public education was the effect of the baby boom of the 1950's and 1960's on the schools.In the 1920's, but especially in the Depression conditions of the 1930's, the United States experienced a declining birth rate---every thousand women aged fifteen to forty-four gave birth to about 118 live children in 1920, 89.2 in 1930, 75.8 in 1936, and 80 in 1940.With the growing prosperity brought on by the Second World War and the economic boom that followed it young people married and established households earlier and began to raise larger families than had their predecessors during the Depression.Birth rates rose to 102 per thousand in 1946,106.2 in 1950, and 118 in 1955.Although economics was probably the most important determinant, it is not the only explanation for the baby boom.The increased value placed on the idea of the family also helps to explain this rise in birth rates.The baby boomers began streaming into the first grade by the mid 1940's and became a flood by 1950.The public school system suddenly found itself overtaxed.While the number of schoolchildren rose because of wartime and postwar conditions, these same conditions made the schools even less prepared to cope with the food.The wartime economy meant that few new schools were built between 1940 and 1945.Moreover, during the war and in the boom times that followed, large numbers of teachers left their profession for better-paying jobs elsewhere in the economy.Therefore in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the baby boom hit an antiquated and inadequate school system.Consequently, the ― custodial rhetoric‖ of the 1930’s and early 1940’s no longer made sense that is, keeping youths aged sixteen and older out of the labor market by keeping them in school could no longer be a high priority for an institution unable to find space and staff to teach younger children aged five to sixteen.With the baby boom, the focus of educators and of laymen interested in education inevitably turned toward the lower grades and back to basic academic skills and discipline.The system no longer had much interest in offering nontraditional, new, and extra services to older youths.34 公共教育的角色变化一项重要的、有可能促使人们对公共教育的角色的看法发生转变的社会发展是本世纪五六十年代的生育高峰对学校的影响。在20年代，尤其是在30年代后的大萧条中，美国经历了一次出生率的下降--1920年每千名年龄在15岁至45岁的妇女生下大约118个存活婴儿，1930年89.2个，1936年75.8个，1940年80个。随着二战带来的持续繁荣以及随之而来的经济增长，年轻人比大萧条中的同龄人更早地结婚成家，而且比前辈养育更大的家庭。1946年出生率上升到102%，1950年达106%，1955年达118%。对于生育高峰，经济有可能是最重要的决定因素，但它并不是唯一的解释。不断受到重视的家庭观念也有助于解释出生率的上升。到40年代中期为止，这些生育高峰出生的孩子们开始源源不断地进入小学一年级。到了1950年，就形成了一股洪流。公共教育系统突然感到不堪重负了。由于战时和战后的状况，使得学龄儿童人数增加，这些状况使得学校面对这股洪流更加措手不及。战时经济意味着在1940年到1950年间几乎没有建立新学校。而且，在战时和随后的经济增长时期，大量的教师离开岗位去别处从事报酬更为优厚的工作。

因此，在五六十年代，生育高峰冲击着陈旧而不完备的学校体系。这样一来，30年代以及40年代早期，“监护理论”就不再有意义了。也就是说，通过使16岁以上的年轻人留在学校不进入劳动力市场的做法再也不是教育机构的优先考虑了。因为教育机构不再能找到场地和教师来教育那些更小的5-16岁的孩子。随着生育高峰，教育者和圈外人士对教育的兴趣和焦点，不可避免地转向了更低的年级和基础的学术技能和学科上。这个系统不再有浓厚的兴趣给较年长的年轻人提供非传统的新式的和额外的服务。

Unit29:Telecommuting Telecommuting--substituting the computer for the trip to the job----has been hailed as a solution to all kinds of problems related to office work.For workers it promises freedom from the office, less time wasted in traffic, and help with child-care conflicts.For management, telecommuting helps keep high performers on board, minimizes tardiness and absenteeism by eliminating commutes, allows periods of solitude for high-concentration tasks, and provides scheduling flexibility.In some areas, such as Southern California and Seattle, Washington, local governments are encouraging companies to start telecommuting programs in order to reduce rush-hour congestion and improve air quality.But these benefits do not come easily.Making a telecommuting program work requires careful planning and an understanding of the differences between telecommuting realities and popular images.Many workers are seduced by rosy illusions of life as a telecommuter.A computer programmer from New York City moves to the tranquil Adirondack Mountains and stays in contact with her office via computer.A manager comes in to his office three days a week and works at home the other two.An accountant stays home to care for her sick child;she hooks up her telephone modern connections and does office work between calls to the doctor.These are powerful images, but they are a limited reflection of reality.Telecommuting workers soon learn that it is almost impossible to concentrate on work and care for a young child at the same time.Before a certain age, young children cannot recognize, much less respect, the necessary boundaries between work and family.Additional child support is necessary if the parent is to get any work done.Management too must separate the myth from the reality.Although the media has paid a great deal of attention to telecommuting in most cases it is the employee’s situation, not the availability of technology that precipitates a telecommuting arrangement.That is partly why, despite the widespread press coverage, the number of companies with work-at-home programs or policy guidelines remains small.36

电子交通

电子交通--用电脑取代上班的往返--作为对各种各样的办公室工作问题的解决办法已受到了欢迎。

对工作者来说，它承诺不受办公室的约束，更少的时间浪费在交通上和有助于解决照看小孩的矛盾。对管理者来说，电子交通有助于挽留高效率的工作者，通过省去办公室与家之间的来回往返，大大减少工作拖拉和旷工，给予管理者独处的时间来完成需要高度集中精神的任务，为管理者提供灵活的时间安排。在一些地区，如南加利福尼亚和西雅图、华盛顿，地方政府鼓励公司开始电子交通计划以减少交通高峰时的塞车和提高空气质量。

但这些益处也来之不易。要使电子交通成功需要仔细的计划并且理解电子交通的现实状况和流行的想象之间的区别。许多工作者被电子交通的美好幻想所迷惑。一位电脑程序设计员从纽约市搬到了宁静的阿第伦达克山，用电脑保持与她办公室之间的联系。一位经理一周三天到办公室，其他两天在家工作；一位会计师在家照顾她生病的孩子，接通电话调制解调器的接头，在同医生通话之余完成办公室工作。

这些是很有震撼力的情景，但也是对现实有限的反映。电子交通者很快发现在同一时间专注工作和照看小孩几乎是不可能的。在某个年龄之前，小孩子不可能意识到，更不可能尊重工作与家庭之间的界限。如果家长要完成工作，就必须另外照看小孩。

管理阶层必须把现实同神话分开。虽然传媒对电子交通投入了极大的关注，但在很大程度上，是员工的实际情况而不是技术的可能性促成电子交通的安排。这就是为什么尽管有广泛的报导，具有在家工作项目或行动纲领的公司数目依然很少的部分原因。

Unit30:The origin of Refrigerators By the mid-nineteenth century, the term ―icebox‖ had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States.The ice trade grew with the growth of cities.Ice was used in hotels, taverns, and hospitals, and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter.After the Civil War(1861-1865),as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it also came into household use.Even before 1880,half of the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families for their own use.This had become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a precursor of the modern refrigerator, had been invented.Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose.In the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of the physics of heat, which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary.The commonsense notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was the melting of the ice that performed the cooling.Nevertheless, early efforts to economize ice included wrapping up the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing its job.Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors achieve the delicate balance of insulation and circulation needed for an efficient icebox.But as early as 1803, and ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been on the right track.He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market center.When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium price for his butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks.One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.38

冰箱的由来

直到19世纪中期，“冰箱”这个名词才进入了美国语言，但冰仅仅只是开始影响美国普通市民的饮食。冰的买卖随着城市的发展而发展。冰被用在旅馆、酒馆、医院以及被一些有眼光的城市商人用于肉、鱼和黄油的保鲜。内战(1861-1865)之后，冰被用于冷藏货车，同时也进入了民用。甚至在1880年前，半数在纽约、费城和巴尔的摩销售的冰，三分之一在波士顿和芝加哥销售的冰进入家庭使用，因为一种新的家庭设备，冰箱，即现代冰箱的前身，被发明了。

制造一台有效率的冰箱不像我们想象的那么简单。19世纪早期，关于对冷藏科学至关重要的热物理知识是很浅陋的。认为最好的冰箱应该防止冰的融化这样一个普遍的观点显然是错误的，因为正是冰的融化起了制冷作用。早期为节省冰的努力，包括用毯子把冰包起来，使得冰不能发挥它的作用。直到近19世纪末，发明家们才成功地找到有效率的冰箱所需要的精确的隔热和循环的精确平衡。

但早在1803年，一位有发明天才的马里兰农场主，托马斯莫尔，找到了正确方法。他拥有一个农场，离华盛顿约20英里，那里的乔治镇村庄是集市中心。当他用自己设计的冰箱运送黄油去市场时，他发现顾客们会走过装在竞争者桶里那些迅速融化的黄油而给他比市价更高的价格买他仍然新鲜坚硬，整齐地切成一磅一块的黄油。莫尔说他的冰箱的一个好处是使得农民们不必在夜里上路去市场以保持他们产品的低温。

Unit31:British Columbia British Columbia is the third largest Canadian provinces, both in area and population.It is nearly 1.5 times as large as Texas, and extends 800 miles(1,280km)north from the United States border.It includes Canada’s entire west coast and the islands just off the coast.Most of British Columbia is mountainous, with long rugged ranges running north and south.Even the coastal islands are the remains of a mountain range that existed thousands of years ago.During the last Ice Age, this range was scoured by glaciers until most of it was beneath the sea.Its peaks now show as islands scattered along the coast.The southwestern coastal region has a humid mild marine climate.Sea winds that blow inland from the west are warmed by a current of warm water that flows through the Pacific Ocean.As a result, winter temperatures average above freezing and summers are mild.These warm western winds also carry moisture from the ocean.Inland from the coast, the winds from the Pacific meet the mountain barriers of the coastal ranges and the Rocky Mountains.As they rise to cross the mountains, the winds are cooled, and their moisture begins to fall as rain.On some of the western slopes almost 200 inches(500cm)of rain fall each year.More than half of British Columbia is heavily forested.On mountain slopes that receive plentiful rainfall, huge Douglas firs rise in towering columns.These forest giants often grow to be as much as 300 feet(90m)tall, with diameters up to 10 feet(3m).More lumber is produced from these trees than from any other kind of tree in North America.Hemlock, red cedar, and balsam fir are among the other trees found in British Columbia.40

英属哥伦比亚

英属哥伦比亚是加拿大的第三大省，无论是面积还是人口都是如此。它几乎是德克萨斯的1.5倍，从美国边境一直向北延伸了800英里(1，280公里)。它包括了加拿大整个西海岸及附近岛屿。

大部分英属哥伦比亚多山峦。绵长而粗犷的山脉贯通南北。甚至那些沿海的岛屿都是那些存在于千万年前的山脉的遗迹。在上一个冰河时期，这些山脉被冰河冲刷侵蚀，直到大部分山脉被淹没在海中。它们的峰顶显现为沿着海岸散布的岛屿。

西南海岸地区有着潮湿温和的海洋性气候。从太平洋来的温暖的洋流使得从西吹过内陆的海风变得温暖。因此这儿冬天平均气温在零上而且夏天也不会酷热。这些温暖的西风同样也从海洋带来了湿气。来自太平洋的、从海岸向内陆的风遇到海岸山脉和落基山脉这些山脉屏障。当气流升高跨越这些山脉时，风的温度就降低了，风中的水分形成降雨。在一些朝西山坡区域每年大约有200英寸(500厘米)的降水。

大部分英属哥伦比亚密布着森林。在有充足降水的斜坡，巨大的道格拉斯枞树高耸入云。这些森林巨人常常长到高达300英尺(90米)，直径粗达10英尺(3米)。这些树产出了比北美其他任何树都多的木材。铁杉、红香椿、香脂冷杉枞都是发现于英属哥伦比亚的其它树种。

Unit32:Botany Botany, the study of plants, occupies a peculiar position in the history of human knowledge.For many thousands of years it was the one field of awareness about which humans had anything more than the vaguest of insights.It is impossible to know today just what our Stone Age ancestors knew about plants, but form what we can observe of pre-industrial societies that still exist a detailed learning of plants and their properties must be extremely ancient.This is logical.Plants are the basis of the food pyramid for all living things even for other plants.They have always been enormously important to the welfare of people not only for food, but also for clothing, weapons, tools, dyes, medicines, shelter, and a great many other purposes.Tribes living today in the jungles of the Amazon recognize literally hundreds of plants and know many properties of each.To them, botany, as such, has no name and is probably not even recognized as a special branch of ― knowledge‖ at all.Unfortunately, the more industrialized we become the farther away we move from direct contact with plants, and the less distinct our knowledge of botany grows.Yet everyone comes unconsciously on an amazing amount of botanical knowledge, and few people will fail to recognize a rose, an apple, or an orchid.When our Neolithic ancestors, living in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago, discovered that certain grasses could be harvested and their seeds planted for richer yields the next season the first great step in a new association of plants and humans was taken.Grains were discovered and from them flowed the marvel of agriculture: cultivated crops.From then on, humans would increasingly take their living from the controlled production of a few plants, rather than getting a little here and a little there from many varieties that grew wild-and the accumulated knowledge of tens of thousands of years of experience and intimacy with plants in the wild would begin to fade away.42

植物学

植物学，即对植物的研究，在人类知识的历史中占据了特殊的地位。这是人类几千年来超越模糊的认知而真正有所了解的领域之一。我们今天不可能知道新石器时代的祖先们对植物到底了解多少，但我们在至今仍存在的前工业化社会观察到：人类对植物及其特性的详细了解应该是非常古老的。这是理所当然的。植物是其他生物甚至其他植物食物金字塔的基础。它们对人们的生活至关重要，不仅在食物上，而且在衣物、武器、工具、染料、药物、住所和许许多多其他的用途上。至今仍生活在亚马逊河丛林中的部落确实能够辨识几百种植物并知道每一种的许多特性。对他们来说，植物学没有专门的名称，甚至可能根本未被认为是一种专门知识。

不幸的是，工业化的程度越高，我们距直接与植物接触就越远，我们的植物学知识的增加也就越微不足道。然而每个人在不知不觉中拥有大量的植物学知识，很少有人认不出玫瑰、苹果或兰花。大约一万年前居住在中东的新时代的祖先们发现某些草能被收获，它们的种子下一季耕种会收获更多时，人类就迈出了人和植物之间的新关系第一大步。谷子被发现后，农业的奇迹从此诞生：这就是可栽培的谷物。从那时起，人类越来越依赖少数可控制的作物生存，而不再是从众多的野生种类中这里获取一点，那里获取一点。这样在千万年中对于野生植物的经验和密切联系中积累起来的知识就开始消失了。

Unit33:Plankton

Scattered through the seas of the world are billions of tons of small plants and animals called plankton.Most of these plants and animals are too small for the human eye to see.They drift about lazily with the currents, providing a basic food for many larger animals.Plankton has been described as the equivalent of the grasses that grow on the dry land continents, and the comparison is an appropriate one.In potential food value, however, plankton far outweighs that of the land grasses.One scientist has estimated that while grasses of the world produce about 49 billion tons of valuable carbohydrates each year, the sea’s plankton generates more than twice as much.Despite its enormous food potential, little effect was made until recently to farm plankton as we farm grasses on land.Now marine scientists have at last begun to study this possibility, especially as the sea’s resources loom even more important as a means of feeding an expanding world population.No one yet has seriously suggested that ― plankton-burgers‖ may soon become popular around the world.As a possible farmed supplementary food source, however, plankton is gaining considerable interest among marine scientists.One type of plankton that seems to have great harvest possibilities is a tiny shrimp-like creature called krill.Growing to two or three inches long, krill provides the major food for the great blue whale, the largest animal to ever inhabit the Earth.Realizing that this whale may grow to 100 feet and weigh 150 tons at maturity, it is not surprising that each one devours more than one ton of krill daily.44

浮游生物

浮游生物数十亿吨的被称为“浮游生物”的小动物、植物散布在世界的海洋中。这些小的动、植物大多太小而难以被人眼看到。它们随波逐流，为许多较大的动物提供了基本的食物。

浮游生物曾被描述为生长在大陆陆地上的各种草类的海洋对应物。这种比喻是恰当的。然而就潜在的食物价值而言，浮游生物远胜于草类。一位科学家曾经估计，世界上的草类每年生产大约490亿吨有用的碳水化合物，而海洋里的浮游生物每年生产的碳水化合物多于此数的两倍。

尽管浮游生物具备巨大的食物潜能，但直到最近人们还很少象种植草类那样付出努力养殖浮游生物。现在，海洋科学家们至少已开始研究这种可能性。全球人口不断扩张，海洋资源作为食品的重要性日益突出。

现在还没有人认真说过“浮游生物汉堡”会很快在世界上流行起来。然而，作为一种可能养殖的补充性食物资源，浮游生物正引起了海洋科学家们相当大的兴趣。

一种似乎具有很大收获可能性的微小的虾状浮游生物被称为鳞虾。鳞虾长至2～3英寸长时即成为地球上曾居住过的最大动物--蓝鲸的主要食物。成熟的蓝鲸可以达到100英尺长，150吨重，所以每头鲸每天吞食1吨多的鳞虾一点也不让人吃惊。

Unit34:Raising Oysters In the oysters were raised in much the same way as dirt farmers raised tomatoes-by transplanting them.First, farmers selected the oyster bed, cleared the bottom of old shells and other debris, then scattered clean shells about.Next, they ‖planted‖ fertilized oyster eggs, which within two or three weeks hatched into larvae.The larvae drifted until they attached themselves to the clean shells on the bottom.There they remained and in time grew into baby oysters called seed or spat.The spat grew larger by drawing in seawater from which they derived microscopic particles of food.Before long, farmers gathered the baby oysters, transplanted them once more into another body of water to fatten them up.Until recently the supply of wild oysters and those crudely farmed were more than enough to satisfy people’s needs.But today the delectable seafood is no longer available in abundance.The problem has become so serious that some oyster beds have vanished entirely.Fortunately, as far back as the early 1900’s marine biologists realized that if new measures were not taken, oysters would become extinct or at best a luxury food.So they set up well-equipped hatcheries and went to work.But they did not have the proper equipment or the skill to handle the eggs.They did not know when, what, and how to feed the larvae.And they knew little about the predators that attack and eat baby oysters by the millions.They failed, but they doggedly kept at it.Finally, in the 1940’s a significant breakthrough was made.The marine biologists discovered that by raising the temperature of the water, they could induce oysters to spawn not only in the summer but also in the fall, winter, and spring.Later they developed a technique for feeding the larvae and rearing them to spat.Going still further, they succeeded in breeding new strains that were resistant to diseases, grew faster and larger, and flourished in water of different salinities and temperatures.In addition, the cultivated oysters tasted better!46

饲养牡蛎

过去人们饲养牡蛎的方式很大程度上类似于田地里的农夫种植蕃茄--通过移植来饲养它们。首先，农夫选好牡蛎苗床，清除底部的旧壳和其它杂物，然后四处撒播干净的壳。接着，他们“栽种”已受精的牡蛎卵。这些卵在2～3周内会孵化成幼贝。幼贝一直漂流直到粘在苗床底部干净的壳上为止。它们会呆在那儿并逐渐长成小牡蛎。我们称之为种子或贝苗。贝苗吸进海水中的微小生物作为食物从而越长越大。不久之后，农夫将这些小牡蛎收集起来，把它们移种进其他的水域加快其生长，然后再次将它们移种进另外的水域以使其肥壮起来。

直到最近，野生的以及人工饲养的牡蛎完全能够满足人们的需要。但是今天这种可口的海味已不再大量存在。这个问题已经变得如此严重以至于一些牡蛎苗床已完全消失。幸运的是，早在20世纪初期海洋生物学家们就意识到如果不采取新的措施，牡蛎将会灭绝或至少会变为一种奢侈的食品。因此他们建造了装备良好的孵卵场所并开始工作。但是他们尚没有适当的装臵或技术来处理牡蛎卵。他们不知道何时、用什么以及如何喂养幼贝。他们对捕食数百万幼小牡蛎的动物天敌也所知无几。他们失败了，但他们顽强地坚持了下来。终于，在20世纪40年代，一个重要的突破性的进展产生了。

海洋生物学家发现，升高水温能够诱导牡蛎不仅在夏季也在秋季、冬季和春季里产卵。后来他们发展了一项技术来喂养幼贝至其长成贝苗。他们进一步成功地培养出了新的品种，可以抵抗疾病、长得更快、更大并且在不同的盐度和温度的水中都能茁壮生长。此外，这些培殖出的牡蛎口感更佳!

U 47

nit35:Oil Refining An important new industry, oil refining, grew after the Civil war.Crude oil, or petroleum – a dark, thick ooze from the earth – had been known for hundreds of years, but little use had ever been made of it.In the 1850’s Samuel M.Kier, a manufacturer in western Pennsylvania, began collecting the oil from local seepages and refining it into kerosene.Refining, like smelting, is a process of removing impurities from a raw material.Kerosene was used to light lamps.It was a cheap substitute for whale oil, which was becoming harder to get.Soon there was a large demand for kerosene.People began to search for new supplies of petroleum.The first oil well was drilled by E.L.Drake, a retired railroad conductor.In 1859 he began drilling in Titusville, Pennsylvania.The whole venture seemed so impractical and foolish that onlookers called it ― Drake’s Folly‖.But when he had drilled down about 70 feet(21 meters), Drake struck oil.His well began to yield 20 barrels of crude oil a day.News of Drake’s success brought oil prospectors to the scene.By the early 1860’s these wildcatters were drilling for ― black gold‖ all over western Pennsylvania.The boom rivaled the California gold rush of 1848 in its excitement and Wild West atmosphere.And it brought far more wealth to the prospectors than any gold rush.Crude oil could be refined into many products.For some years kerosene continued to be the principal one.It was sold in grocery stores and door-to-door.In the 1880’s refiners learned how to make other petroleum products such as waxes and lubricating oils.Petroleum was not then used to make gasoline or heating oil.48

炼油

一种重要的新兴工业--炼油业在国内战争后成长起来。未加工的石油，或原油--一种深色的地下的稠浆--数百年来一直为大众所知，但是人们却很少使用过它。在十九世纪五十年代，萨缪尔M科尔，宾西法尼亚西部的一位制造商，开始从当地的溢出物中收集石油并将它炼成煤油。与冶炼矿石一样，石油提炼是一个从未加工的原料中除去杂质的过程。

煤油被用来点灯。它是鲸油的一种便宜的替代品，而鲸油正变得越来越难以获得。不久就产生了对煤油的大量需求。人们开始寻找新的石油供应。

第一口油井为EL瑞克，一个退休的火车检票员所钻得。1859年他开始在宾西法尼亚的泰特斯维尔钻井。整个的这项冒险事业看起来是如此不现实和愚蠢以致旁观者称之为“鸭子的蠢行”。(译者注：Drake'sFolly,drake在这里意含双关，即指瑞克的名字，又指该词的本义即鸭子。)但当瑞克往下钻至70英尺(21米)的时候，他发现了石油。他的油井从此每天生产20桶原油。

瑞克成功的消息将石油勘探者们吸引到现场。截止到19世纪60年代早期，这些冒险者为寻找“黑色的金子”钻探遍了整个宾西法尼亚西部。这项繁荣的事业在刺激性和粗犷的西部气氛上可与1848年的加州淘金热相媲美，而且它为勘探者带来了远超过淘金潮的财富。

原油能被提炼成许多产品。多年以来煤油一直是主要的一种产品。它在杂货店中出售由人挨户推销。19世纪八十九十年代炼油者们懂得了生产其它石油产品，如蜡和润滑油。那时石油还没有被用来制造汽油或采暖装臵用油。

Unit36:Plate Tectonics and Sea-floor Spreading The theory of plate tectonics describes the motions of the lithosphere, the comparatively rigid outer layer of the Earth that includes all the crust and part of the underlying mantle.The lithosphere(n.[地]岩石圈)is divided into a few dozen plates of various sizes and shapes, in general the plates are in motion with respect to one another.A mid-ocean ridge is a boundary between plates where new lithospheric material is injected from below.As the plates diverge from a mid-ocean ridge they slide on a more yielding layer at the base of the lithosphere.Since the size of the Earth is essentially constant, new lithosphere can be created at the mid-ocean ridges only if an equal amount of lithospheric material is consumed elsewhere.The site of this destruction is another kind of plate boundary: a subduction zone.There one plate dives under the edge of another and is reincorporated into the mantle.Both kinds of plate boundary are associated with fault systems, earthquakes and volcanism, but the kinds of geologic activity observed at the two boundaries are quite different.The idea of sea-floor spreading actually preceded the theory of plate tectonics.In its original version, in the early 1960’s, it described the creation and destruction of the ocean floor, but it did not specify rigid lithospheric plates.The hypothesis was substantiated soon afterward by the discovery that periodic reversals of the Earth’s magnetic field are recorded in the oceanic crust.As magma rises under the mid-ocean ridge, ferromagnetic minerals in the magma become magnetized in the direction of the magma become magnetized in the direction of the geomagnetic field.When the magma cools and solidifies, the direction and the polarity of the field are preserved in the magnetized volcanic rock.Reversals of the field give rise to a series of magnetic stripes running parallel to the axis of the rift.The oceanic crust thus serves as a magnetic tape recording of the history of the geomagnetic field that can be dated independently;the width of the stripes indicates the rate of the sea-floor spreading.50

第四篇：摘抄优美短文

摘抄优美短文

摘抄优美短文1

一个永恒的话题，唯有珍惜即时的拥有，生命的记忆里才会少一些悔恨。珍惜每一刻时间，让你的生命活的更有价值！

每个人都应当珍惜此刻的生活，都要让自我活得更有价值和意义，活得开开心心。仅有珍惜此刻的时光，把握好今日，才有可能立足于明天。许多年后，当我们回味过去时，惟一能让自我不后悔的办法，就是把握当初的每一分每一秒，认识到每一天其实都是异常的，都是上天的恩赐，从而更加珍惜当前的生生命短暂，人生有限，不懈努力，创造价值。我们必须对自我负责，好好的使用生命，让人生更光彩有意义。有句话说的好“人的生命是有限，可是，为人民服务是无限的。我要把有限的生命，投入到无限的为人民服务中去。”我认为生命不在于活的生命的长短，而在于是否在有限的生命中拼搏了；是否给予了；是否活得精彩。

生命的意义就是在于奋斗，人生的意义则在于积累。不要乞求太多，每一天一点点就足够了。所有的失望和不满都是来自于我们自身的贪婪。坚持一个平静的心态，我们就会拥有整个世界

无可奈何花落去，似曾相识燕归来。

流光容易把人抛，红了樱桃，绿了芭蕉。

摘抄优美短文2

人生如戏，我们上演着悲欢离合，试过欢声笑语，也试过痛哭流涕；人生如戏，我们经历过顺境逆境，尝过成功的甜，也尝过失败的苦。当中的滋味，仅有身处其中的自我才能彻底体会。别人可能会以为我们表演得太夸张，其实那都是我们最真实的反应。

人生如戏，总会在我们不经意的时候埋下伏笔，等着某一天让我们恍然大悟。也许有人能够洞察先机，能够逢凶化吉；也许有人是有幸运加持，能够安然度过；也许有人过于迟钝，只能黯然叹息了。

人生如戏，我们以为能够改变自我的命运，却没想到我们的结局早已注定。无论怎样做都摆脱不了戏里既定的安排，可谓殊途同归。如此看来，我们的拼搏和挣扎就像小丑在跳舞，徒惹人发笑罢了。

人生如戏，无论观众对这出戏有任何的意见，在戏里的我们永远都听不见，只能按照安排表演着我们的人生。就算观众为我们叫好，我们也不会所以高兴；就算观众为我们喝倒彩，我们也不会所以沮丧。因为这出戏是属于我们自我的戏，好与坏应当由我们自我来做评判。

摘抄优美短文3

苦断肠

寡酒难饮情难忘，

谁人却能情轻放。

若能做得情无欲，

何苦相思情断肠。

乱世飘萍

没有兼济天下的实力，却能有独善其身的想法。猛然间想起归去来兮辞——田园将芜胡不归。乱世飘萍的生活，我想应该没有多少人会喜欢吧。人都有着自己的归属感，离开这片土地久了，就会有一种更难以理解的深情吧。

我很喜欢沈从文，我喜欢他的归属感。无论何时何地，心中有一方空间，那里有着故乡的山，故乡的水，我们的根扎在那里，感受这那片土地的深沉，厚重。

零零散散坠了一地

一个人跌跌撞撞走了这么久，开始发现，自己真的悲哀，就像个小丑一样。——蓝瑾非

我从来不会向她【他】们坦承我很累，有时候甚至会忘记自己是为了什么活着的。心痛了，一个人扛，哭完了，一个人装坚强，在人前活泼的要死，可人后呢，没有人知道我心里藏了多少东西，更没有人了解我的无奈。人人都在赞扬美丽的白天鹅，可又有谁知道小丑面具下的悲哀。

我翻开日记。回想起以往的点点滴滴，不禁苦涩一笑。

蓝晓丫，我有没有说过，没有人能取代你在我心里的位置。你曾说过，会陪我一辈子的，可是现在呢，算了，我不想再想了，让自己再痛一次也没用，丫，你是我的伤，痛过注定难忘。

在我的世界里，你来过，也走过，还跑过，却从不逗留，留下的只是一个身影，然后转身消散。泼墨宣纸上，只能留下我的孤独和惨淡的文字。字与字之间，是回忆的落寞；句与句之间，是相思的洒落；一笔汇集三千心事，终成孤海。

别人都知道我爱笑，还是介于疯笑的那种。

我笑你就觉得我快乐，是不是我莫名的哭了你就觉得我失恋还是什么的？

我在笑，笑我傻。同时也为可怜的真心感到悲哀！我真不觉得我有什么可以炫耀的。友情、爱情、亲情，我得之所失，一无所有。

那么，一直以来，我们以为真心爱着的人，以为最最纯净的感情，究竟是不是真的如我们以为的那般无私与清澈。

墙纸房子，造云机器，美食桌布，换衣服照相机。

我们爱的，究竟是哆啦A梦，还是他的口袋。

虚荣，陪伴，被关爱，不寂寞……我们爱的，究竟是那个人本身，还是他能带给自己的东西。

很难说的清楚，很难分的清晰。

那么，我们是不是也能这般幸运，遇见属于自己的这么一个人。

也许像大雄一样不够聪明，不完美，不那么受欢迎，单纯得有些傻气，但是，抛却属于你的所有光环，所有附加值，所有互利关系，你会相信，他不会放弃你，他会等你，他依旧那么爱你。

会不会有一天，我们会等到自己的大雄。

他说他不要口袋，他说他只爱你。

我想要的未来，有房子住，不用多大，最好窗外有阳光；早晚有酸奶，一天能吃上苹果，有锅给我煮汤，偶尔能逛逛公园，一年能陪爸妈几次；有工作，有本，有单反，有书看，有歌听；朋友偶尔奔过来聚一起，偶尔能到处走走，这样，就很幸福了。拥有唯美的小窝，和我的ta一起，度过完美的每一天，这是你的梦想吗？

遗忘是回忆的开始，逃离是痛苦的折磨，既然童话已经结束，遗忘便是幸福，再美的童话，不能携手，也是惘然。

魅力音乐

音乐，一种能让自己心灵得到释放的魅力，它唱出的是心中的欢快，心中的忧伤与渴望，它是一个及富有表现情感的东西，我想没有谁会不喜欢，都愿意唱出属于自己的歌喉，让自己得到情感的放松。因为音乐，世界再大都不会有隔膜。

记得小时候的我 听到的第一首音乐《小燕子》，很清楚那是的我就跟着音乐的旋律舞动自己的节拍，那时的我才两岁，听到微妙的歌声真的好兴奋。虽然自己现在对于音乐的延长并不熟悉，但是面对音乐的色彩，我无法逃避，更会跟着音乐旋律舞动自己的歌喉，发出自己对音乐的情怀，时起时伏的节拍让自己的心静了下来，能让自己得到舒展，是大脑头皮得到放松。

这个永远都不会退却的文化，只会跟着社会的变化只会转变新的篇章，有对生命的渴望，对爱情的调侃，不管它是以古典的形式出场，还是以爵士的形式收尾，它永远都不会失真。对于自己那都是对生命的渴望，以生命的情感来释放自己心中的苦闷与不屑，音乐是我进入一种无高的境界，我喜欢这种音乐，他发出的每一种音符都会触动我的心灵都是我对梦想的向往。

听到音乐发出的音符，不管何时、何地谁都会表现出 那种心情的兴奋，再也没有像音乐能给我带来兴奋感了，他好像就是那些上班族不可代替的一种物品。商场、地铁站、娱乐城无处不在的都能感觉音乐歌声的存在回旋在自己耳边，好像自己就是音乐中的主角，唱的就是自己的情怀。

我沉静在音乐的歌声里，忧伤的、欢快的遐想，给我带来了心情的释放，得到灵魂的静养，无论何时都会记得音乐带给我的魅力，这种魅力只有懂得欣赏的人才能感觉到它的吸引与情怀。

音乐，这种魅力将会延伸到更远，相信音乐无限，欣赏音乐就是一件愉快的事，学会欣赏音乐的情感，让自己的身心得到升华，得到最好状态。把自己融入到音乐的视野里，就能感受到自己想要的'，该做的，学会慢慢欣赏音乐，就能找到自我。人生如歌，相信音乐带给你的，感受自己的节拍，舞动自己的旋律，享受自己的人生。

勤奋诗

勤奋是风，

为远航的人们带来成功的希望。

勤奋是一艘远航的船和帆，

让一只只轮船在海面上行驶。

勤奋是一艘远航的船和桨，

勇敢地排开汹涌的巨浪。

勤奋是一艘远航的船和舵，

为轮船识辨方向，

让他们继续向理想的目标驶去。

勤奋是一艘远航的船，

谁要与你交朋友，

谁就有幸福，谁就有收获。

第五十四封

我们活着总会有些失落的时候，而在失落的时候，我们漠视了爱与被爱。一生是短暂的，时光紧张而毫无悬念地溜走，难以留下一丝痕迹。学会等等吧，等等自己，等等灵魂，让自己轻松一点，让灵魂休息一下，让人生美妙一些，其实在怎么失落都有一个好处，那就是现在总在过去。

一次次我们相信了爱情， 一次次被爱情打败

爱情，便是在一次次的受伤之后无奈的学会放下，一次次必须学会面对现实，一次次的问自己，那些甜蜜是否真的可以毫无保留的丢弃。

摘抄优美短文4

生活给予我挫折的同时，也赐予了我坚强，我也就有了另一种阅历。对于热爱生活的人，它从来不吝啬。要看你有没有一颗包容的心，来接纳生活的恩赐。酸甜苦辣不是生活的追求，但必须是生活的全部。试着用一颗感恩的心来体会，你会发现不一样的人生。不要因为冬天的寒冷而失去对春天的等待。我们感激上苍，是因为有了四季的轮回。拥有了一颗感恩的心，你就没有了埋怨，没有了嫉妒，没有了愤愤不平，你也就有了一颗从容淡然的心！

感恩的心，感激有你，伴我一生，让我有勇气做我自我。感恩的心，感激命运，花开花落，我一样会珍惜。这首歌使我明白没有阳光，就没有温暖；没有水源，就没有生命；没有父母。就没有我们自我；没有他们，世界就会是一片孤独和黑暗，为了摆脱它，我们需要一颗感恩的心。

落叶在空中盘旋，谱写着一曲感恩的乐章，那是大树对滋养它对大地的感恩；白云在蔚蓝的天空中飘荡，绘画着那一幅幅感人的画面，那是白云对哺育它的蓝天的感恩。因为感恩才会有这个多彩的社会，因为感恩才会有真挚的友情。因为感恩才让我们懂得了生命的真谛。

你如果学会了感恩，你将会发现自我是多么的欢乐，放开你的胸怀，让霏霏细雨洗刷你心灵的污点……

摘抄优美短文5

对于攀登者来说，失掉往昔的足迹并不可惜，迷失了继续前时的方向却很危险。不为失败找理由，要为成功找方法。

奋斗是什么我想许多人对于这个话题都不陌生了。大家都会这样说：奋斗好比七彩石，能够击出我们的青春蓬勃。

我个人认为奋斗是一种信念。每个人都具备、拥有这种信念，许多名人、英雄的故事中无一不显示奋斗这个字眼。在他们认为奋斗是无时无刻不在自我身边的。正是拥有这种信念他们才会成功。当年三万万中国人团结一致，奋斗了十来年才取得了胜利。由此可见，奋斗是多么艰辛而漫长的过程。所以如今我们仅有拥有这种信念才能够成为成功的主人，大学的大门才会向我们打开。

从牙牙学语开始我们就学习知识，学士人世间的酸甜苦辣。有的同学说：奋斗这个词听起来好听，可我实在受不了了，这个过程好痛苦。是，奋斗是一个苦差事。可不经风雨，又怎会见彩虹呢何况我们已经做了一半，不把它做完，损失就更大……

拥有梦想只是一种智力，实现梦想才是一种本事。让我们把奋斗表此刻生活得点点滴滴。

摘抄优美短文6

想你，在每个太阳初升的清晨。未睁开朦胧的眼睛便开始偷偷地想你，你的笑，你的哭，你的忍让，你的霸道，你的大度，你的细心眼。那一刻，我的脑海里再也容不下别的，包括我自我。

想你，在每个午后清浅的时光。习惯在午后懒懒地靠在椅子上，看着莹莹的蓝天，悠悠的白云，我明白那是你我的追逐。习惯双手托腮，将自我放在感伤的音乐里，每个跳动的音符都触动着我的心弦，一字一句的歌词似乎都因你我的故事而生，感动许久许久，偶有泪水滑落，不是悲伤，不是怅惘，而是思念渗入骨子里，无处可逃，无处安放，无它。

想你，在每个安静地能够清晰地听到自我心跳的夜晚。抖落一天的疲惫，安静地躺在床上，枕着合十的双手，想此刻的你是不是喝了几杯酒，是不是吃的饱饱的，是不是又要很晚才回家，是不是我偶尔的催促会让你顿生厌恶，是不是该留给彼此大大的空间，想好多好多关于你的问题，有些剩余。想，只是简单的想你，不想打扰你，唯有将对你满腹的思念，经过流动的笔尖，融入柔情的诗句，寄成笺，折成船，放入思念的长河，任其漂荡，只待你轻轻拾起，将我挚热的爱稳稳地收藏。

摘抄优美短文7

秋雨丝丝洒枝头，烟缕织成愁，遥望落花满地残红，曾也枝头盈盈娉婷，装饰他人梦。如今花落簌簌，曾绚烂完美刹那芳华。看那花瓣上的珍珠，不甚清风的摆动，悄然滑落，那不舍的是离愁，尘缘已过，聚散匆匆。不需忧伤，花儿，不会因为离枝而失去芬芳；草儿，不会因为寒冬而放弃生的期望。今年花胜去年红，明年花更好，花开最美，不负这红尘人间。

细数走过的岁月，欢乐伴着忧伤。在时光的深处中，最美的永远艳丽多彩不褪色，那些伤痛，时间久了也就模糊不清，留下的记忆也是残缺碎片。遇到不满意时，总会拿过去的好作比较，留恋过去，厌恶此刻，始不知过去也是此刻，此刻也会过去。行走红尘人间，做个随遇而安的草木女子，让清风拂袖，心香暖怀。生命的旅途，总会有千回百转，悲喜寒凉，季节的辗转，绮丽的风景。若是懂得，这都是生活赋予的完美。有些人，有些事，也许进了你的眼，滑过你的心，又悄然的溜走了，也许只为相遇，留一道风景。把路途的美景丰盈心灵，化一道属于自我的风情。

第五篇：优美小短文

1.亮把阴影拉长了，林间小径好像一条银灰色的蛇躺着睡觉，矮橡丛弯弯曲曲的阴影成了蛇身的纹彩。路旁一块斑驳的花岗岩刚经雨淋湿，光亮得如同抽打磨过的青铜块。松林矗立山顶，饱受风霜与岁月的侵凌。松枝迎风摇曳，像是在抚摸月亮的脸，想抹掉那遮掩清光的灰色皱纹。

2．月光能改变最常见的景色，掩饰人的瑕疵，化庸俗为优美。零星散布的农舍石板瓦屋顶映月生辉，恰似擦亮的铜片。田间干透了的枯草，此起彼伏，宛如一方白蜡色的丝绸。

3.夜空转凉，薄雾初起。站在山巅之上，可见迷雾四散，直下河谷，阵阵水气像长长的卷须，无声无息地慢慢伸向河流。树木和巉石变成了孤岛。缠结在一起的荆棘、一丝山楂、一堆落石，都幻化成吓人的野兽模样，伺机伏击。

4.林间比较温暖，鸢尾草矗立湖滨，俨如高耸的灰色尖塔。月亮的倒影则像弃置的金盘，躺在我脚边的水里。我走过时惊醒了一只松鸡，那聒嗓的叫声划破夜的岑寂，这时月影乱舞，仿若不胜其扰。一条鱼也应声跃起，将水中金盘搅成无数碎片，然后在我眼前再慢慢还原。5.当秋风扫落了树叶，又急送浮云掠过天空之后，月亮便似乎在苍穹飞驰，闪烁的月光把神秘而又变幻莫测的大地照得乍隐乍现。这时，应该赶快找地方投宿了，因为古老的幽灵总在不远处，在忽明忽暗的夜色中更加如鱼得水。附近忽然响起嗦嗦声，心跳随即加剧，不过，恐惧却带着兴奋的心情和生之喜悦。

6.在生命的征途上，不要在乎鲜花与笑脸，只要我们的每一瞬间，都尽力去做，尽量做得更好，那么我们这些平凡的人也就拥有了精彩，这些精彩便组成了我们不平凡的人生。

7.生命的每一瞬间都需要我们去奋斗、拼搏、进取，不定的风会把无人采撷的种子播撒到天涯海角，尽管它也能从阳光里得到温暖，从雨水里得到滋润，但那一瞬间，它还要做一个重要的决定——去寻找自己生命的沃土。

8.感激伤害你的人，因为他磨练了你的心态；感激绊倒你的人，因为他强化了你的双腿；感激欺骗你的人，因为他增进了你的智慧；感激蔑视你的人，因为他觉醒了你的自尊；感激遗弃你的人，因为他教会了你独立。

9.读书是感悟，读人更是感悟。感是“举手长劳劳，两情同依依”的微笑，是“无可奈何花落去，似曾相识燕归来”的彷徨；悟是“此情可待成追忆，只是当时已惘然”的朦胧，是“念桥边红药，年年知为谁生”的感叹。