高中英語美文摘抄

時間：2017-01-04 16:50:32 韋彥867由分享

　　以經(jīng)典美文誦讀作為突破口,破解當今學生讀書苦,苦讀書的現(xiàn)狀,在英語教學中走出了一條開滿鮮花的快樂閱讀之路,激發(fā)了學生的學習興趣,提升了校園生活品質,形成了學校文化品牌。學習啦小編整理了高中英語美文，歡迎閱讀!

　　高中英語美文：Coal-fired Power Plants

　　The invention of the incandescent light bulb by Thomas A. Edison in 1879 created a demandfor a cheap, readily available fuel with which to generate large amounts of electric power. Coalseemed to fit the bill, and it fueled the earliest power stations (which were set up at the end ofthe nineteenth century by Edison himself. As more power plants were constructed throughoutthe country, the reliance on coal increased. Since the First World War, coal-fired power plantshave accounted for about half of the electricity produced in the United States each year. In1986 such plants had a combined generating capacity of 289, 000 megawatts and consumed83 percent of the nearly 900 million tons of coal mined in the country that year. Given theuncertainty in the future growth of nuclear power and in the supply of oil and natural gas,coal-fired power plants could well provide up to 70 percent of the electric power in the UnitedStates by the end of the century.

　　Yet, in spite of the fact that coal has long been a source of electricity and may remain one formany years (coal represents about 80 percent of United States fossil-fuel reserves), it hasactually never been the most desirable fossil fuel for power plants. Coal contains less energyper unit of weight than natural gas or oil; it is difficult to transport, and it is associated with ahost of environmental issues, among them acid rain. Since the late 1960's problems of emissioncontrol and waste disposal have sharply reduced the appeal of coal-fired power plants. Thecost of ameliorating these environmental problems along with the rising cost of building a facilityas large and complex as a coal-fired power plant, have also made such plants less attractivefrom a purely economic perspective.

　　Changes in the technological base of coal-fired power plants could restore their attractiveness,however. Whereas some of these changes are evolutionary and are intended mainly toincrease the productivity of existing plants, completely new technologies for burning coalcleanly are also being developed.

　　火力發(fā)電廠

　　托馬斯 ·愛迪生 1879 年發(fā)明的白熾燈導致對便宜、易得、可生產大量電能的燃料的需求。煤似乎符合這個要求，并成為第一批電廠的燃料(正是愛迪生本人在 19 世紀末建造了第一批電廠)。全國到處興建電廠時，對煤的依賴加深了。自第一次世界大戰(zhàn)以來，美國每年約有一半的電力是以煤為燃料的電廠提供的。 1986 年這些電廠的總發(fā)電能力達到28，900 千瓦并且消耗了當年全國開采的九億噸煤的 83%。考慮到核能發(fā)展以及石油、天然氣供應中的不確定因素，到本世紀末，火力發(fā)電廠仍可能為美國提供多達 70%的電力。然而，盡管煤長期以來一直是電力的原料之一并且可能會繼續(xù)如此(煤占美國化石燃料儲量的 80%)，它卻不是電廠的理想燃料。煤的單位能量含量低于石油和天然氣，而且會導致包括酸雨在內的一系列環(huán)境問題。從 1960 年以來，排放控制和垃圾處理的問題極大地削弱了燃煤電廠的魅力。由于減輕這些環(huán)境問題需要大量資金，而且建造龐大復雜的燃煤電廠的費用不斷上漲，也使得這些電廠從經(jīng)濟角度上不具備吸引力。改變火力發(fā)電廠的基礎技術卻可能恢復它們的吸引力。雖然某些技術改進是漸進的，其目的只是提高現(xiàn)有電廠的生產率，但人們正在開發(fā)全新的清潔燃煤的技術。

　　高中英語美文：Chimpanzee

　　The most striking single fact about chimpanzees is the flexibility of their social life, the lack ofany rigid form of organization. It represents about as far a departure from the baboon type oforganization as one can find among the higher primates, and serves to emphasize the greatvariety of primate adaptations. Chimpanzees are more human than baboons, or rather theyjibe better with the way we like to picture ourselves, as free-wheeling individuals who tend tobe unpredictable, do not take readily to any form of regimentation, and are frequentlycharming.

　　(Charm is relatively rare among baboons.) Two researchers have described what they foundduring more than eight months spent among chimpanzees in their natural habitat theforest:"We were quite surprised to observe that there is no single distinct social unit inchimpanzee society. Not only is there no 'family' or 'harem' organization; neither is there a'troop' organization - that is to say, no particular chimpanzees keep permanently together.On the contrary, individuals move about at will, alone or in small groups best described asbands, which sometimes form into large aggregations.

　　They leave their associates if they want to, and join up with new ones without conflict. " Thegeneral practice is best described as "easy come, easy go", although there are certain group-forming tendencies. As a rule himpanzees move about in one of four types of band: adultmales only; mothers and offspring and occasionally a few other females; adults andadolescents of both sexes, but no mothers with young and representatives of all categoriesmixed together. The composition of bands may change a number of times during the courseof a day as individuals wander off and groups split or combine with other groups. On theother hand, certain individuals prefer one another's company. One of the researchers observedthat four males often roamed together over a four-month period, and mothers often associatedwith their older offsprings.

　　黑猩猩

　　黑猩猩最突出的一個特征是它們社會生活的靈活性，即缺乏固定的組織形式。它的這一特征與狒狒的那種組織形態(tài)間的差別，在靈長動物中最為突出。由此可見靈長類動物中適應性變化的多樣性。黑猩猩比狒狒更接近人類，或者說它與我們心愿的自我形象更為接近：自由自在，不落窠臼，不喜歡任何形式的約束并且往往魅力十足(在狒狒中魅力比較罕見)。通過在黑猩猩的自然棲息地森林中對它們進行了 8 個月的觀察，兩名研究人員得出這樣結論："我們注意到在黑猩猩的社會中似乎沒有任何一種獨立的社會基本單位，這一點令我們很吃驚。它們不僅沒有'家庭'或'妻妾'組織，也沒有'團隊'組織，也就是說黑猩猩沒有固定地生活在一起。相反，每只黑猩猩隨意流動，或是獨自一人，或是作為最好稱之為團伙的一員。團伙有時會與其它團伙合并成大的聚合體。它們可以隨意離開同伴，并與其它黑猩猩組成新的團伙而不會產生任何糾紛。"把黑猩猩這一總的特性稱之為"來得容易去得快" 是最恰當不過了。但它們也有一定的群體傾向性。通常，黑猩猩群的構成有以下4 種：僅有成年雄性; 母猩猩及其子女而且偶爾有幾只其它的雌性猩猩; 雄性和雌性的成年和未成年黑猩猩但不包括有子女的雌性黑猩猩; 以及各種類型混雜在一起。一天之中一個團伙的組成可能變化好幾次，因為有的成員可能離開，而且群體可能會與其它群體合并。另一方面，有些黑猩猩有自己喜歡的伙伴。一名研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)四只雄性黑猩猩在4 個月中常常共同游蕩，還有母親們常與她們較年長的子女們在一起。

　　高中英語美文：Children's Numerical Skills

　　People appear to be 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 impressive accuracy -- one knife, one spoon, one fork, for each of the five chairs. Soon they are capable of noting 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-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 granted, as they refused, for instance, to concede that quantity is unchanged as water pours from a short stout 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.

　　兒童的數(shù)學能力

　　人似乎生來就會計算。孩子們使用數(shù)字的技能發(fā)展得如此之早和如此必然，很容易讓人想象有一個內在的精確而成熟的數(shù)字鐘在指導他們的成長。孩子們在學會走路和說話后不久，就能以令人驚嘆的準確布置桌子--五把椅子前面分別擺上一把刀、一個湯匙、一把叉子。很快地，他們就能知道他們已在桌面上擺放了五把刀、五個湯匙、五把叉子。沒有多久，他們就又能知道這些東西加起來總共是 15 把銀餐具。如此這般地掌握了加法之后，他們又轉向減法。有一種設想幾乎順理成章，那就是，即使一個孩子一出生就被隔絕到荒島上，七年后返回世間，也能直接上小學二年級的數(shù)學課，而不會碰到任何智力調整方面的大麻煩。當然，事實并沒有這么簡單。本世紀認知心理學家的工作已經(jīng)揭示了智力發(fā)展所依賴的日常學習的微妙形式。他們觀察到孩子們緩慢掌握那些成年人認為理所當然的概念的過程，或者是孩子們偶然遇到這些概念的過程。他們也觀察到孩子們拒絕承認某些常識的情況。比如：孩子們拒絕承認當水從短而粗的瓶中倒入細而長的瓶子中時，水的數(shù)量沒有變化。心理學家們而后又展示一個例子，即：讓孩子們數(shù)一堆鉛筆時，他們能順利地報出藍鉛筆或紅鉛筆的數(shù)目，但卻需誘導才能報出總的數(shù)目。此類研究表明：數(shù)學基礎是經(jīng)過逐漸努力后掌握的。他們還表示抽象的數(shù)字概念，如可表示任何一類物品并且是在做比擺桌子有更高數(shù)學要求的任何事時都必備的一、二、三意識，遠遠不是天生就具備的。

　　
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