新概念英語文章

　　在琳琅滿目的英語教材之中,《新概念英語》***New Concept English***可謂是經久不衰的教材之一。下面是小編帶來的下載，歡迎閱讀!

　　下載1

　　Plankton

　　浮游生物

　　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.

　　數十億噸的被稱為"浮游生物"的小動物、植物散佈在世界的海洋中。這些小的動、植物大多太小而難以被人眼看到。它們隨波逐流，為許多較大的動物提供了基本的食物。

　　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 valuablecarbohydrates each year, the sea’s plankton generates more than twice as much.

　　浮游生物曾被描述為生長在大陸陸地上的各種草類的海洋對應物。這種比喻是恰當的。然而就潛在的食物價值而言，浮游生物遠勝於草類。一位科學家曾經估計，世界上的草類每年生產大約490億噸有用的碳水化合物，而海洋裡的浮游生物每年生產的碳水化合物多於此數的兩倍。

　　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.

　　儘管浮游生物具備巨大的食物潛能，但直到最近人們還很少象種植草類那樣付出努力養殖浮游生物。現在，海洋科學家們至少已開始研究這種可能性。全球人口不斷擴張，海洋資源作為食品的重要性日益突出。

　　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.

　　現在還沒有人認真說過“浮游生物漢堡”會很快在世界上流行起來。然而，作為一種可能養殖的補充性食物資源，浮游生物正引起了海洋科學家們相當大的興趣。

　　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.

　　然而，作為一種可能養殖的補充性食物資源，浮游生物正引起了海洋科學家們相當大的興趣。一種似乎具有很大收穫可能性的微小的蝦狀浮游生物被稱為鱗蝦。鱗蝦長至2-3英寸長時即成為地球上曾居住過的最大動物——藍鯨的主要食物。成熟的藍鯨可以達到100英尺長，150噸重，所以每頭鯨每天吞食1噸多的鱗蝦一點也不讓人吃驚。

　　下載2

　　Icebergs

　　冰山

　　Icebergs are among nature’s most spectacular creations, and yet most people have never seen one. A vague air of mystery envelops them. They come into being -- somewhere -- in faraway, frigid waters, amid thunderous noise and splashing turbulence, which in most cases no one hears or sees. They exist only a short time and then slowly waste away just as unnoticed.Objects of sheerest beauty they have been called. Appearing in an endless variety of shapes, they may be dazzlingly white, or they may be glassy blue, green or purple, tintedfaintly or in darker hues. They are graceful, stately, inspiring -- in calm, sunlight seas. But they are also called frightening and dangerous, and that they are -- in the night, in the fog, and in storms. Even in clear weather one is wise to stay a safe distance away from them. Most of their bulk is hidden below the water, so their underwater parts may extend out far beyond the visible top. Also, they may roll over unexpectedly, churning the waters around them.

　　冰山是大自然最壯觀的創造之一，但大多數人卻從未看到過冰山，一種朦朧神祕的氣氛籠罩著它們。冰山形成於久遠的、寒冷的水體中，而且伴隨著雷聲轟鳴般的嘈雜和水花洶湧的風暴，但卻無人耳聞目睹。冰山僅存在短短的一段時間就慢慢地悄無聲息地融化掉。冰山具有最純粹的美，人們如是說。冰山呈現出千姿百態，可能白得耀眼，或者是閃耀著藍色、綠色或紫色的玻璃般的光芒，或濃或淡。它們在平靜的陽光照耀的海水中顯得優雅堂皇，令人浮想聯翩。但是人們亦把冰山稱為恐怖的和危險的。它們的確如此--在夜間，霧天和風暴肆虐時。即便是在晴朗的天氣裡，與它們保持一段安全距離也是明智的。冰山的大部分體積穩藏於水下，因此其水下部分的伸展遠遠超過可見的頂部。冰山也可能出人意料地翻滾，劇烈地攪動周圍的水體。

　　Icebergs are parts of glaciers that break off, drift into the water, float about awhile, and finally melt. Icebergsafloat today are made of snowflakes that have fallen over long ages of time. They embody snows that drifted down hundreds, or maybe thousands, or in some cases maybe a million years ago. The snows fell in polar regions and on cold mountains, where they melted only a little or not at all, and so collected to great depths over the years and centuries.

　　冰山是冰川的一部分，從冰川斷裂漂流進水中，一段時間後融化。今天的冰山由多年前降落的雪花形成。它們的體內是數百年，或數千年，有時甚至是數百萬年前的降雪。這些雪花落在極地或寒冷的山上，僅有少量融化或根本不融化，這樣經過許多年或許多世紀後積累了巨大的深度。

　　As each year’s snow accumulation lay on the surface, evaporation and melting caused the snowflakes slowly to lose their feathery points and become tiny grains of ice. When new snow fell on top of the old, it too turned to icy grains. So blankets of snow and ice grains mounted layer upon layer and were of such great thickness that the weight of the upper layers compressed the lower ones. With time and pressure from above, the many small ice grains joined and changed to larger crystals, and eventually the deeper crystals merged into a solid mass of ice.

　　由於每年的雪花積累在表面之上，蒸發和融化使得雪花慢慢失去其羽狀尖端而變成微小的冰粒。當新的雪花降落到舊的表面上，也變成了冰粒。因而雪花覆蓋層和冰粒層層堆積起來直到如此之大的厚度以致較上層的重量壓縮較下層。在時間和壓力的作用下，許多小冰粒結合到一起變成更大的晶體，最終較底層的晶體合併成龐大而堅固的冰塊。

　　下載3

　　Topaz

　　黃玉

　　Topaz is a hard, transparent mineral. It is a compound of aluminum, silica, and fluorine.

　　黃玉是一種堅硬、透明的礦物質。它是鋁、矽和氟的化合物。

　　Gem topaz is valuable. Jewelers call this variety of the stone “precious topaz”. The best-known precious topaz gems range in color from rich yellow to light brown or pinkish red. Topaz is one of the hardest gem minerals. In the mineral table of hardness, it has a rating of 8, which means that a knife cannot cut it, and that topaz will scratch quartz.

　　寶石級黃玉價值不菲。珠寶商把這種石頭稱為“貴黃玉”。最出名的貴黃玉有各種顏色，如深黃色、淡棕色、淺紅色等。黃玉是最堅硬的寶石礦中的一種。在礦石硬度表上，它的硬度為8，這表明刀子不能割開它而它可在石英上劃痕。

　　The golden variety of precious topaz is quite uncommon. Most of the world’s topaz is white or blue. The white and blue crystals of topaz are large, often weighing thousands of carats. For this reason, the value of topaz does not depend so much on its size as it does with diamonds and many other precious stones, where the value increases about four times with each doubling of weight. The value of a topaz is largely determined by its quality. But color is also important: blue topaz, for instance, is often irradiated to deepen and improve its color.

　　金色的貴黃玉品種非常罕見。世界上大多數的黃玉是白色或藍色的。這些白色或藍色的黃玉晶體很大，常常有數千克拉重。由於這個原因，黃玉的價值不像鑽石和許多其它寶石那樣主要依賴於其大小，重量翻一番價值即上升約四倍。黃玉的價值很大程度上取決於其品質，但顏色也很重要。舉例來說，藍色的黃玉常需放射處理以加深和改善其顏色。

　　Blue topaz is often sold as aquamarine and a variety of brown quartz is widely sold as topaz. The quartz is much less brilliant and more plentiful than true topaz. Most of it is variety of amethyst: that heat has turned brown.

　　藍色的黃玉常被作為海藍寶出售，許多種棕色石英則被當作黃玉廣為販賣。石英光亮度遠小於黃玉，礦藏儲量也遠較黃玉豐富。大多數石英是一種紫水晶，高溫使其變為棕色。

　　注：黃玉，礦物學家也稱之為黃晶，英文名Topaz，國內珠寶界常稱之為託帕石，為英文的音譯。這主要是因為無論是黃玉還是黃晶，都會和我國珠寶界原有的一些寶石的稱呼相混淆。在我國，黃色的和田玉***軟玉***長期被稱為黃玉，尤其是在考古界;而黃晶又和水晶中的黃水晶容易相混。