新概念英语美文欣赏

新概念英语美文欣赏 Be the Master of Your Time Time is tricky. It is difficult to control and easy to more time than you need. For example, at the beginning of a semester, you may feel that you have plenty of time on your hands. But towards the end of the term you may suddenly find that time is running out. You dont have enough time to cover all your duties, so you get worried. What is the answer? Control! Time is dangerous. If you dont control it, it will control you. If you dont make it work for you, it will work against you. So you must bee the master of time, not its servant. As a first-year college student, time management will be your number one problem. Words and Expressions: master n 主人，硕士，大师 tricky adj 狡猾的，机敏的 run out（of） 用完，耗尽，到期，期满 Antelope and Lion In Africa, when the antelope wakes up every morning, the first thing that es to his mind is, I must be able to run faster than the fastest lion, or I will be killed by a lion. And at just the same time, the lion wakes out of his dream, and the first thing flashing into his mind is, I must be able to catch up with the slowest antelope; otherwise I will starve to death. So, almost at the same moment both the antelope and the lion jump to their feet and start running towards the rising sun. Such is life-whether you are an antelope or a lion, you ought to dash forward without hesitation when the sun rises. Words and Expressions: antelope n 羚羊；羚羊皮革 dash v 猛掷；冲撞 Attitude The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attidtude, to one, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than suesses, than what other people think, say, or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make or break a pany, a church, a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We can not change our past. We cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is to play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes. Words and Expressions: impact n 影响 giftedness n 天资、天赋 inevitable adj 不可避免的、必然的 Hang in There Difficulties arise in the lives of us all. What is most important is dealing with the hard times, coping with the changes, and getting throught to the other side where the sun is still shining just for you.It takes a strong person to deal with tough times and difficult choices. But you are a strong person. It takes courage. But you possess the inner courage to see you through.It takes being an active participant in your life. But you are in the drivers seat, and you can determine the direction you want tomorrow to go in. Hang in there. and take care to see that you dont lose sight of the one thing that is constant, beautiful, and true: Everything will be fine-and it will turn out that way because of the special kind of person you are. So. beginning today and lasting a lifetime through-Hang in there, and dont be afraid to feel like the morning sun is shining. just for you. Words and Expressions: deal with 处理，解决 Unit1:The Language of Music A painter hangs his or her finished pictures on a wall, and everyone can see it. A poser writes a work, but no one can hear it until it is performed. Professional singers and players have great responsibilities, for the poser is utterly dependent on them. A student of music needs as long and as arduous a training to bee a performer as a medical student needs to bee 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 armtwo 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 tuners 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 bined 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 monly 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 ones 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 munities or what the newest filmmakers are experimenting with. There are definite conditions surrounding the formalized process of schooling. 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 plex work posed 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, plicated 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 plete 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 prise 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 bee 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 eels body are specialized for generating electricity, and the strength of the shock it can deliver corresponds roughly to length of its body. Unit5:The Beginning of Drama There are many theories about the beginning of drama in ancient Greece. The on most widely aepted 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 munity 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-suess in hunt or battle, the ing rain, the revival of the Sun-as an actor might. Eventually such dramatic representations were separated from religious activities. Another theory traces the theaters origin from the human interest in storytelling. Aording 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. 新概念三 经典教材精选的美文十篇 新概念三 Lesson 14A noble gangster 贵族歹徒 There was a time when the owners of shops and businesses in Chicago had to pay large sums of money to gangsters in return for protection. If the money was not paid promptly, the gangsters would quickly put a man out of business by destroying his shop. Obtaining protection money is not a modern crime. As long ago as the fourteenth century, an Englishman, Sir John Hawkwood, made the remarkable discovery that people would rather pay large sums of money than have their life work destroyed by gangsters. Six hundred years ago, Sir Johan Hawkwood arrived in Italy with a band of soldiers and settled near Florence. He soon made a name for himself and came to be known to the Italians as Giovanni Acuto. Whenever the Italian city-states were at war with each other, Hawkwood used to hire his soldiers to princes who were willing to pay the high price he demanded. In times of peace, when business was bad, Hawkwood and his men would march into a city-state and, after burning down a few farms, would offer to go away if protection money was paid to them. Hawkwood made large sums of money in this way. In spite of this, the Italians regarded him as a sort of hero. When he died at the age of eighty, the Florentines gave him a state funeral and had a pictured painted which was dedicated to the memory of the most valiant soldier and most notable leader, Signor Giovanni Haukodue. 曾经有一个时期,芝加哥的店主和商行的老板们不得不拿出大笔的钱给歹徒以换取保护。如果交款不及时,歹徒们就会很快捣毁他的商店,让他破产.榨取保护金并不是一种现代的 _.早在14世纪,英国人约翰.霍克伍德就有过非凡的发现:人们情愿拿出大笔的钱,也不愿毕生的心血毁于歹徒之手. 600年前,约翰.霍克伍德爵士带着一队士兵来到意大利,在佛罗伦萨附近驻扎下来,很快就出了名.意大利人叫他乔凡尼.阿库托.每次意大利各城邦之间发生战争,霍克伍德把他的士兵雇佣给愿给他出高价的君主。和平时期,当生意萧条时,霍克伍德便带领士兵进入某个城邦,纵火烧毁一两个农场,然后提出,如向他们缴纳保护金,他们便主动撤离。霍克伍德用这种方法挣了大笔钱.尽管如此,意大利人还是把他视作某种英雄。他80岁那年死去时,佛罗伦萨人为他举行了国葬,并为他画像以纪念这位骁勇无比的战士、杰出的领袖乔凡尼.阿库托先生. Lesson 17 The longest suspension bridge in the world 世界上最长的吊桥 Verrazano, an Italian about whom little is known, sailed into New York Harbour in 1524 and named it Angouleme. He described it as a very agreeable situation located within two small hills in the midst of which flowed a great river. Though Verrazano is by no means considered to be a great explorer, his name will probably remain immortal, for on November 21st, 1964, the longest suspension bridge in the world was named after him. The Verrazano Bridge, which was designed by Othmar Ammann, joins Brooklyn to Staten Island. It has a span of 4,260 feet. The bridge is so long that the shape of the earth had to be taken into aount by its designer. Two great towers support four huge cables. The towers are built on immense underwater platforms made of steel and concrete. The platforms extend to a depth of over 100 feet under the sea. These alone took sixteen months to build. Above the surface of the water, the towers rise to a height of nearly 700 feet. They support the cables from which the bridge has been suspended. Each of the four cables contains 26,108 lengths of wire. It has been estimated that if the bridge were packed with cars, it would still only be carrying a third of its total capacity. However, size and strength are not the only important things about this bridge. Despite its immensity, it is both simple and elegant, fulfilling its designers dream to create an enormous object drawn as faintly as possible. 1524年，一位鲜为人知的意大利人维拉萨诺驾船驶进纽约港，并将该港名为安古拉姆。他对该港作了这样的描述：“地理位置十分适宜，位于两座小山的中间，一条大河从中间流过”。虽然维拉萨诺绝对算不上一个伟大的探险家，但他的名字将流芳百世，因为1964年11月21日建成的一座世界上最长的吊桥是以他的名字命名。 维拉萨诺大桥由奥斯马.阿曼，连结着布鲁克林与斯塔顿岛，桥长4,260英尺。由于桥身太长，设计者不得不考虑了地表的形状。两座巨塔支撑着4根粗大的钢缆。塔身建在巨大的水下钢盘混凝土平台上。平台深入海底100英尺。仅这两座塔就花了16个月才建成。塔身高出水面将近700英尺。高塔支撑着钢缆，而钢缆又悬吊着大桥，4根钢缆中的每根由26，108股钢绳组成。据估计，若桥上摆满了汽车，也只不过是桥的总承载力的1/3。然而，这座桥重要特点不仅是它的规模与强度。尽管此桥很大，但它的结构简单，造型优美，实现了设计者企图创造一个“尽量用细线条勾画出一个庞然大物”的梦想。 Lesson 21 Daniel Mendoza 丹尼尔.门多萨 Boxing matches were very popular in England two hundred years ago. In those days, boxers fought with bare fists for prize money. Because of this, they were known as prize-fighters. However, boxing was very crude, for there were no rules and a prize-fighter could be seriously injured or even killed during a match. One of the most colourful figures in boxing history was Daniel Mendoza, who was born in 1764. The use of gloves was not introduced until 1860, when the Marquis of Queensberry drew up the first set of rules. Though he was technically a prize-fighter, Mendoza did much to change crude prize-fighting into a sport, for he brought science to the game. In his day, Mendoza enjoyed tremendous popularity. He was adored by rich and poor alike. Mendoza rose to fame swiftly after a boxing-match when he was only fourteen years old. This attracted the attention of