英文美文賞析
經典美文,經得起時間的考驗,被歷史證明是最有價值、最重要的文化精髓,思想宏遠,構思巧妙,語言精美。加強經典美文誦讀與積累,並對學生加以寫作指導,做到讀寫訓練有效結合,能讓學生有效地提高寫作能力。下面是本站小編帶來的英語美文閱讀，歡迎閱讀!
解讀石油價格(Getting real about gas prices)
Woe! Woe to the politician who is perceived to be failing to do something about the soaring price of gasoline, which has jumped about 20 percent in the past six months. AAA estimates the average two-car household will consume more than 1,200 gallons of gasoline a year. That means the 50-cents-a-gallon increase over the past year has families spending an extra $600 of after-tax money each year, squeezing middle- and low-income families the most.
可悲!在過去的六個月，政客們對石油價格驟升20%束手無策真是可悲。每星期，當司機加油時,總感覺被宰了。AAA估計平均有兩部車的家庭一年要消耗1200多加侖汽油，也就是說，每加侖汽油升價50美分就使這個家庭在交稅以後，還要多付600美元，這使得中下收入的家庭更加拮据。
Chinese drivers. This time nobody is sure that the spike in oil prices will be Asia.,who could have imagined that India and China would become such big consumers? Chinese demand grew by 33 percent last year and by an additional 20 percent this year, pushing consumption to over 6 million barrels a day. China is on the verge of an exploding demand for automobiles. Gasoline consumption will have risen from about 10 percent of China's oil needs 10 years ago to an estimated 40 percent by the end of this decade, when private car ownership is expected to soar to almost 28 million. Those people with incomes high enough to afford autos in India and China are growing by about 12 percent a year. No longer will 80 percent of the world's energy be used by only 20 percent of the world's population.
在中國，司機都認爲這次石油價格驟升不會是短期的。對於亞洲，誰曾想得到印度和中國會成爲這麼大的消耗國。中國需求去年增長33%，今年還要再增加20%，使得消耗量每天超過600萬桶。中國對汽車的需求很快就要激增，當私人汽車增加到2800萬時，汽油的消耗也要從十年前的10%增加到這個年代底的估計的40%。在中國和印度能買得起汽車的人以每年12%增加。世界能源的80%不再是隻被20%的人口所使用。
And what about supply? No one is paying attention to the experts' warnings, any more than they did nearly 50 years ago. Back then, the United States was the world's biggest oil producer, pumping more than half as much again as the Soviet Union and twice as much as many Middle Eastern countries. But the Cassandras, as it turned out, were right. U.S. production peaked, in 1970, at about 10 million barrels a day and is now at least 30 percent below that. As for the OPEC countries, we know very little about their potential for new energy sources. Most of their oil comes from a handful of old oil fields, concentrated in a small area called the "golden triangle." It has been years since any significant new fields have been found. Whether Saudi Arabia could step up production from its current level, 8 million barrels a day, to 20 million barrels a day by 2020 is questionable. Political turmoil, meanwhile, besets producers like Venezuela and Nigeria.
那麼供應呢?儘管專家在50年前就提出警告,但沒人注意.那時,美國是世界最大的石油出產國,出油量比蘇聯多一半,是一些中東國家有二倍.但事實證明,預言家是正確的.美國在1970年頂端時,每天出產大約1000萬桶,而現在至少下降了30%.至於OPEC國家,我們對於他的能源潛力知之甚少。他們的大多數石油來自老的油井，集中在“金三角”地帶，在新的油田發現之前，這狀況還要持續很多年。沙特阿拉伯半島能否在現在的每天800萬桶水平上提高到2020年的2000萬桶還是個問題。同時，政治上的騷亂困擾像委內瑞拉、尼日利亞這樣的生產國。
So a crisis looms. Matthew Simmons of Strategic Economic Decisions says that the crisis will be global because the $3 trillion-a-year energy industry underpins every aspect of society。
所以能源危機正在迫近，經濟戰略中心的Matthew Simmons說這個危機是全球性的，因爲每年3萬億的能源行業支撐着社會的各個方面。
What to do? We must provide an environment certain to attract the huge capital investment necessary to enhance and improve production of every energy resource--oil, gas, nuclear, hydro, coal, and renewables. The auto industry has shown how it can improve fuel efficiency, so we must work out a timely updating of such standards for cars, light trucks, and SUVs。No progress will be possible, however, without sacrifice. We will pay more dearly ,if we procrastinate. Failure to develop an energy policy means we can look forward to a lifetime of enriching the obscene sheiks, of wasting treasure and blood to defend the Middle East while impoverishing ordinary Americans and hobbling our economy.
那我們應該怎樣做?我們必須營造一個環境，確保吸引大量的資金以提高每一種能源的生產，如石油，天然氣，核能，氫，煤和可再生的能源。汽車生產業已經向我們展示了他們如何提高燃料效率，而我們要必須及時地對汽車，輕卡，越野車，制定一個新的這樣的標準。任何進步都必須付出代價，如果我們在耽擱的話，就要付出更大的代價。如果能源政策失敗就意味着我們一輩子要富足那個猥瑣的酋長，一輩子要浪費錢財和鮮血去保衛中東，而同時我們國民貧窮，經濟不前。
英語美文閱讀篇二Are you a good tipper?
You're out to dinner. The food was delicious and the service was fine. You decide to leave a big fat tip - why? The answer may not be as simple as you think.
當你在外面吃飯的時候，食物可口，服務周到，於是你決定留下一筆豐盛的小費——這是爲什麼呢?答案也許不像你想得那麼簡單。
Tipping, psychologists have found, is rarely just service. Instead, studies have shown tipping can be influenced by psychological reactions to an array of factors ranging from the waiter's choice of words to how they carry themselves while taking orders to the bill's total. Even how much waiters remind customers of themselves can determine how much change they pocket by the end of the night.
心理學家發現，給小費不僅僅是因爲服務。研究表明人們給小費會受到對一系列因素產生的心理反應所影響。這些因素包括從服務員的措辭到結帳時他們的舉止。甚至連服務員能在多大程度上讓顧客想到自己也決定了他一天下來能夠拿到多少小費。
"Previous studies have shown that mimicry enhances positive feelings for the mimicker," wrote Rick van Baaren, a social psychology professor at the University of Nikmegen in the Netherlands, in a recent study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. "These studies indicate that people who are being mimicked become more generous toward the person who mimics them."
荷蘭Nikmegen大學的社會心理學教授裏克·範·巴倫在《實驗社會心理學》雜誌上最近發表的一項研究中寫到：“以前的研究已經表明模仿能夠增加人們對模仿者的好感。這些研究表明被模仿者對模仿自己的人更慷慨大方。”
To detect the benefit of copying the customer, van Baaren and his colleagues surveyed staff in American-styled restaurants in southern Holland. Among a group of 59 waitstaff, van Baaren requested that half respond to diner's meal orders with a positive phrase such as, "Coming up!"
爲了弄清模仿消費者的好處，範·巴倫和他的同事們對荷蘭南部美國風味餐館的員工們進行了調查。在一組總共59名服務員中，範·巴倫要求他們中的一半跟點餐者說“就來!”等明確的答覆。
Those in the other half were instructed to repeat the orders and preferences back to the customers. Van Baaren then compared their take-home. The results were clear -it pays to imitate your customer. The copycat waiters earned almost double the amount of tip than the other group.
另一半服務員則被要求把顧客點的餐和喜好重複一遍。範·巴倫隨後比較了他們所得的小費，結果很清楚——模仿顧客對服務員有好處。模仿顧客的服務員獲得的小費差不多是另一組服務員所得的兩倍。
Leonard Green and Joel Myerson, psychologists at Washington University in St. Louis, found the generosity of a tipper may be limited by their bill. After compiling data from nearly 1,000 tips left for waiters, cab drivers and hair stylists, they found that tip percentages in all three areas dropped as customers' bills went up.
聖路易斯華盛頓大學的心理學家萊昂納德和喬爾·邁爾森發現，給小費者人是否慷慨可能會受到帳單金額的影響。通過彙總服務員、出租車司機和髮型師收到的近1000份小費的數據，他們發現這三個領域中小費的比例都隨着顧客帳單金額的上升而下降。
In fact, tip percentages appear to plateau when bills topped 0 and a bill for 0 garnered the worker no bigger percentage tip than a bill for 0.
當帳單超過100美元后，小費的比例變化不明顯。一筆200美元的消費對於服務員來說獲得小費的比例並不比100美元的消費高。
Why? Green has his theories, including one he attributes to an old Woody Allen saying: "Eighty percent of success in life is showing up."
這是爲什麼呢?格林有他自己的理論，其中的一條他總結爲伍迪·艾倫的名言：“生活中80%的成功是自我表現。”
"That's also a point of tipping," Green says. "You have to give a little extra to the cab driver for being there to pick you up and something to the waiter for being there to serve you. If they weren't there you'd never get any service. So I think part of the idea of a tip is for just being there."
格林說：“這一點對於給小費來說也很重要。對於接你的出租車司機和爲你服務的服務員，你不得不給一點額外的小費。如果他們不存在，你就得不到任何服務，所以我認爲給小費一部分是因爲他們的存在。”
Green explains since everyone would earn the "just being there" tip, it's inevitable that portion would make up a larger percentage of smaller bills.
格林解釋說，既然每個人都會獲得“因爲存在”的那部分小費，所以小費在較小金額的消費中必然佔較大的比例。
英語美文閱讀篇三Do animals Think?
The question has often been asked, Do animals think? I believe that some of them think a great deal. Many of them are like children in their sports. We notice this to be true very often with dogs and cats; but it is true with other animals as well.
Some birds are very lively in their sports; and the same is true with some insects. The ants, hardworking as they are, have their times for play. They run races; they wrestle; and sometimes they have mock fights together. Very busy must be their thoughts while engaged in these sports.
There are many animals, however, that never play; their thoughts seem to be of the more sober kind. We never see frogs engaged in sport. They all the time appear to be very grave. The same is true of the owl, who always looks as if he were considering some important question.
Animals think much while building their houses. The bird searches for what it can use in building its nest, and in doing this it thinks. The beavers think as they build their dams and their houses. They think in getting their materials, and also in arranging them, and in plastering them together with mud. Some spiders build houses which could scarcely have been made except by some thinking creature.
As animals think, they learn. Some learn more than others. The parrot learns to talk, though in some other respects it is quite stupid. The mocking bird learns to imitate a great many different sounds. The horse is not long in learning many things connected with the word which he has to do. The shepherd dog does not know as much about most things as some other dogs, and yet he understands very well how to take care of sheep.
Though animals think and learn, they do not make any real improvement in their ways of doing things, as men do. Each kind of bird has its own way of building a nest, and it is always the same way. And so of other animals. They have no new fashions, and learn none from each other. But men, as you know, are always finding new ways of building houses, and improved methods of doing almost all kinds of labor.
Many of the things that animals know how to do they seem to know either without learning, or in some way which we cannot understand. They are said to do such things by instinct; but no one can tell what instinct is. It is by this instinct that birds build their nests and beavers their dams and huts. If these things were all planned and thought out just as men plan new houses, there would be some changes in the fashions of them, and some improvements.
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