關於新東方英語美文閱讀

　　新東方培訓學校以其特有的英語教學方式成功地提高了英語學習者的學習興趣,並幫助他們取得了優異的成績。下面是小編帶來的，歡迎閱讀!

　　篇一

　　Folk Cultures

　　A folk culture is a small isolated, cohesive, conservative, nearly self-sufficient group that is homogeneous in custom and race with a strong family or clan structure and highly developed rituals. Order is maintained through sanctions based in the religion or family and interpersonal. Relationships are strong. Tradition is paramount, and change comes infrequently and slowly. There is relatively little division of labor into specialized duties. Rather, each person is expected to perform a great variety of tasks, though duties may differ between the sexes. Most goods are handmade and subsistence economy prevails. Individualism is weakly developed in folk cultures as are social classes. Unaltered folk cultures no longer exist in industrialized countries such as the United States and Canada. Perhaps the nearest modern equivalent in Anglo America is the Amish, a German American farming sect that largely renounces the products and labor saving devices of the industrial age. In Amish areas, horse drawn buggies still serve as a local transportation device and the faithful are not permitted to own automobiles. The Amish’s central religious concept of Demut “humility”, clearly reflects the weakness of individualism and social class so typical of folk cultures and there is a corresponding strength of Amish group identity. Rarely do the Amish marry outside their sect. The religion, a variety of the Mennonite faith, provides the principal mechanism for maintaining order.

　　By contrast a popular culture is a large heterogeneous group often highly individualistic and a pronounced many specialized professions. Secular institutions of control such as the police and army take the place of religion and family in maintaining order, and a money-based economy prevails. Because of these contrasts, “popular” may be viewed as clearly different from “folk”. The popular is replacing the folk in industrialized countries and in many developing nations. Folk-made objects give way to their popular equivalent, usually because the popular item is more quickly or cheaply produced, is easier or time saving to use or leads more prestige to the owner.

　　篇二

　　The source of Energy

　　A summary of the physical and chemical nature of life must begin, not on the Earth, but in theSun; in fact, at the Sun’s very center. It is here that is to be found the source of the energythat the Sun constantly pours out into space as light and heat. This energy is librated at thecenter of the Sun as billions upon billions of nuclei of hydrogen atoms collide with each otherand fuse together to form nuclei of helium, and in doing so, release some of the energy that isstored in the nuclei of atoms. The output of light and heat of the Sun requires that some 600million tons of hydrogen be converted into helium in the Sun every second. This the Sun hasbeen doing for several thousands of millions of year.

　　The nuclear energy is released at the Sun’s center as high-energy gamma radiation, a form ofelectromagnetic radiation like light and radio waves, only of very much shorter wavelength.This gamma radiation is absorbed by atoms inside the Sun to be reemitted at slightly longerwavelengths. This radiation , in its turn is absorbed and reemitted. As the energy filtersthrough the layers of the solar interior, it passes through the X-ray part of the spectrumeventually becoming light. At this stage, it has reached what we call the solar surface, and canescape into space without being absorbed further by solar atoms. A very small fraction of theSun’s light and heat is emitted in such directions that after passing unhindered throughinterplanetary space, it hits the Earth.

　　篇三

　　Obtaining Fresh water from icebergs

　　The concept of obtaining fresh water from icebergs that are towed to populated areas and arid regions of the world was once treated as a joke more appropriate to cartoons than real life. But now it is being considered quite seriously by many nations, especially since scientists have warned that the human race will outgrow its fresh water supply faster than it runs out of food.

　　Glaciers are a possible source of fresh water that has been overlooked until recently. Three-quarters of the Earth’s fresh water supply is still tied up in glacial ice, a reservoir of untapped fresh water so immense that it could sustain all the rivers of the world for 1,000 years. Floating on the oceans every year are 7,659 trillion metric tons of ice encased in 10000 icebergs that break away from the polar ice caps, more than ninety percent of them from Antarctica.

　　Huge glaciers that stretch over the shallow continental shelf give birth to icebergs throughout the year. Icebergs are not like sea ice, which is formed when the sea itself freezes, rather, they are formed entirely on land, breaking off when glaciers spread over the sea. As they drift away from the polar region, icebergs sometimes move mysteriously in a direction opposite to the wind, pulled by subsurface currents. Because they melt more slowly than smaller pieces of ice, icebergs have been known to drift as far north as 35 degrees south of the equator in the Atlantic Ocean. To corral them and steer them to parts of the world where they are needed would not be too difficult.

　　The difficulty arises in other technical matters, such as the prevention of rapid melting in warmer climates and the funneling of fresh water to shore in great volume. But even if the icebergs lost half of their volume in towing, the water they could provide would be far cheaper than that produced by desalinization, or removing salt from water.