●议论文
Always Living in Spanish
Marjorie Agosin
Since my earliest childhood in Chile,I lived with the tempo and the melodies of a multiplicity of tongues:German,Yiddish,Russian,Turkish,and many Latin songs.Because everyone was from somewhere else,my relatives laughed,sang,and fought in a Babylon of languages.Spanish was reserved for matters of extreme seriousness,for commercial transactions,or for illnesses,but everyone’s mother tongue was always associated with the memory of spaces inhabited in the past:the shtetl,the flowering and vast Vienna avenues,the minarets of Turkey,and the Ladino whispers of Toledo.When my paternal grandmother sang old songs in Turkish,her voice and body assumed the passion of one who was there in the city of Istanbul,gazing by turns toward the west and the east.
Destiny and the always ambiguous nature of history continued my family’s enforced migration,and because of it I,too,became one who had to live and speak in translation. The disappearances,tortures,and clandestine deaths in my country in the early seventies drove us to the United States,that other America that looked with suspicion at those who did not speak English and especially those who came from the supposedly uncivilized regions of Latin America.I had left a dangerous place that was my home, only to arrive in a dangerous place that was not:a high school in the small town of Athens,Georgia,where my poor recover my usurped country and my Chilean childhood was by continuing to write in Spanish,the same way my grandparents had sung in their own tongues in diasporic sites
The new and learned English language did not fit with the visceral emotions and themes that my poetry contained,but writing in Spanish I could recover fragrances,spoken rhythms,and the passion of my own identity.Daily I felt the need to translate myself for the strangers living all around me,to tell them why we were in Grorgia,why we ate differently, why we had fled,why my accent was so thick and why I did not look Hispanic.Only at night,writing poems in Spanish,could I return to my senses,and soothe my own sorrow over what I had left behind.
文章梗概
Marjorie Agosin，人权活动家、作家，Wellesley学院教授。作为俄罗斯和奥地利的犹太族后裔，她出生于马里兰，在智利长大。在奥古斯托·皮诺切特推翻萨尔瓦多政府时，随父母来到美国。Agosin的作品反映了她作为犹太难民的经历，并因在作品中反映了发展中国家穷苦女性的状况而获得了国际声誉。Agosin写了很多小说、回忆录、诗歌和散文等作品。本文选自她的Always Living in Spanish这部作品。
本文通过作者自己的口吻回顾了她童年的经历，以及在作者被迫流离失所时，由于语言上的不同而遭受到的不公平的待遇。作者更是在第三段写到了自己的情感与语言之间的关系。新语言无法表达出作者的情感，加强自己的身份，而只有使用西班牙语，才能恢复自己的情感，平复自己的痛苦。
词汇
Shtetl[′ʃteɪtl]n.犹太人小村
clandestine[klæn′dɛstɪn]adj.秘密的，私下的，偷偷摸摸的
usurp[ju′zɝp]vt.篡夺，强夺，侵占，盗用
diasporic[daɪ′æspə，rɪk]adj.离散的
visceral[′vɪsərəl]adj.内脏的；出于本能的；发自肺腑的
ambiguous[æm′bɪgjuəs]adj.模糊不清的；引起歧义的
assume[ə′sum]vt.承担；假定；采取；呈现
长难句
1.When my paternal grandmother sang old songs in Turkish,her voice and body assumed the passion of one who was there in the city of Istanbul,gazing by turns toward the west and the east.
当我的祖母用土耳其语唱起旧时的歌曲，她的声音和身体会积聚一种热情，就像一个站在伊斯坦布尔的城中人，不断环顾，期盼远方。
2.Destiny and the always ambiguous nature of history continued my family’s enforced migration,and because of it I,too,became one who had to live and speak in translation.
命运和让人迷离的历史将我的家族被迫移民，也正因为如此，我也同样开始使用语言翻译，在翻译中过活。
Do We Have an Alternative for Meat?
Michael Specter
Meat supplies a variety of nutrients that are not readily found in planet.We can survive without it;millions of vegetarians choose to do so,and billions of others have that choice imposed upon them by poverty.But for at least two million years animals have provided our most consistent source of protein.For most of that time,the economic,social,and health benefits of raising and eating livestock were hard to dispute.The evolutionary biologist Richard Wrangham argues,in his book Catching Fire:How Cooking Made Us Human,that the development of a brain that could conceive of cooking meat—a singularly efficient way to consume protein—has defined our species more clearly than any other characteristic.Animals have always been essential to human development.Sir Albert Howard,who is often viewed as the founder of modern organic-farming movement,put it succinctly in his 1940 mission statement,An Agriculture Testament:“Mother earth never attempts to farm without livestock.”
For many people,the idea of divorcing beef from a cow or pork from a pig will seem even more unsettling than the controversial yet utterly routine practice of modifying crops with the tools of molecular biology.The Food and Drug Administration currently has before it an application,which has already caused rancorous debate,to engineer salmon with a hormone that will force the fish to grow twice as fast as normal.Clearly,making meat without animals would be a more fundamental departure.How we grow,prepare,and eat our food is deeply emotional issue,and lab-grown meat raises powerful questions about what most people see as the boundaries of nature and the basic definitions of life. Can something be called chicken or pork if it was born in a flask and produced in a vat? Questions like that have rarely been asked and have never been answered.
Past discussions have largely been theoretical,but our patterns of meat consumption have become increasingly dangerous for both individuals and the planet.By 2030,ecological implications are daunting,and so are the implications for animal welfare:billions of cows, pigs,and chickens spend their entire lives crated,boxes,or force-fed grain in repulsive conditions on factory farms.These animals are born solely to be killed,and between the two events they are treated like interchangeable parts in a machine,as if a chicken were a sparkplug,and a cow a drill bit.
The consequences of eating meat and our increasing reliance on factory farms are almost as disturbing for human health.According to a report issued recently by the American Public Health Association,animal wastes from industrial farms“often contain persistent organic pollutants”.The World Health Organization has attributed a third of the world’s deaths to the twin epidemics of diabetes and cardiovascular disease,both greatly influenced by excessive consumption of animal fats.
文章梗概
Michael Specter，美国记者，1998年开始担任《纽约时报》的特约撰稿人，主要关注科技和全球公共卫生话题。他还曾为《华盛顿时报》供稿。作者在开篇简述了人类对食物认识的历史，指出烹饪肉食是人类区别于其他动物的特点。第二段则提出在饲养动物时使用药物催肥的动物是否还算是食物，这个问题没有被提出过，更没有被回答过。在前两段的基础上，第三段作者提出了人类在新时期对肉类的可怕需求，而且指出了只有饲养场才能解决这个问题。第四段则分析了这种对农场动物的需求的可怕之处，即过多地食肉会提高人类患病的概率。
词汇
impose[ɪm′pəʊɪ]vi.利用；欺骗；施加影响vt.强加；征税；以⋯⋯欺骗
succinctly[sək′siŋkttli]adv.简洁地；简便地
rancorous[′ræŋkərəs]adj.怀恶意的；深恨的
daunting[′dɔntɪŋ]adj.使人畏缩的；使人气馁的；令人怯步的
flask[′f læsk]n.烧瓶；长颈瓶，细颈瓶；酒瓶，携带瓶
vat[væt]n.大桶；瓮染料制剂桶
sparkplug[′spɑ:klʌg]vt.倡导，发起；激励，推动
drill bit[机][地质]钻头，[矿业]钎头；强钻头
engineer[，ɛndʒɪ′nɪr]vt.设计；策划；精明地处理
cardiovascular[，kɑrdɪəʊ′væskjəlɚ]adj.[解剖]心血管的
长难句
1.The development of a brain that could conceive of cooking meat—a singularly efficient way to consume protein—has defined our species more clearly than any other characteristic.
能够发育出懂得烹饪肉类的大脑——一种高效消耗蛋白质的方法——将人类与其他动物区别开来。
2.For many people,the idea of divorcing beef from a cow or pork from a pig will seem even more unsettling than the controversial yet utterly routine practice of modifying crops with the tools of molecular biology.
对很多人来说，从牛或猪身上获取牛肉或猪肉这一想法比具有争议的但也是常规的用分子生物技术改变水稻更加令人不安。
Silent Spring
Rachel Carson
This history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings.To a large extent,the physical form and the habits of the earth’s vegetation and its animal life have been molded by the environment.Considering the whole span of earthly time,the opposite effect,in which life actually modifies its surroundings,has been relatively slight.Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species—man—acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world.
During the past quarter century this power has not only increased to one of disturbing magnitude but it has changed in character.The most alarming of all man’s assaults upon the environment is the contamination of air,earth,rivers,and sea with dangerous and even lethal materials.This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable;the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible.In this now universal contamination of the environment,chemicals are the sinister and little recognized partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world—the very nature of its life.Strontium 90,released through nuclear explosion into the air,comes to earth in rain or drifts down as fallout,lodges in soil,enters into the grass or corn or wheat grown there,and in time takes up its abode in the bones of a human being,there to remain until his death.Similarly,chemicals sprayed on croplands or forests or gardens lie long in soil,enter into living organisms,passing from one to another in a chain of poisoning and death.Or the alchemy of air and sunlight,combine into new forms that kill vegetation,sicken cattle,and work unknown harm on those who drink from once pure wells.As Albert Schweitzer has said,“Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.”
文章梗概
本篇文章主要讲述了人类对环境污染的进程起源于现代社会，影响也大于以往的任何年代，致使污染程度达到了无法逆转的程度。第二段后部用大段的文字描写了污染物是如何进入大气、空气和水中的，以至于人类已经成为了污染的源头和自己的恶魔（devils of his own creation）。
词汇
magnitude[′mægnɪtud]n.大小；量级
sinister[′sɪnɪstɚ]adj.阴险的；凶兆的
irrecoverable[，ɪrɪ′kʌvǝrǝbl]adj.不能挽回的；不能复原的
lethal[′liθl]adj.致命的，致死的
contamination[kǝn，tæmɪ′neɪʃǝn]n.污染，玷污；污染物
sinister[′sɪnɪstɚ]adj.阴险的；凶兆的
strontium[′strantɪǝm]n.[化学]锶
fallout[′fɔlaut]n.放射性尘埃
lodge[lɑdʒ]vt.提出；寄存；借住；嵌入
organism[′ɔrgǝnɪzǝm]n.有机体；生物体；微生物
alchemy[′ælkǝmi]n.点金术；魔力
sicken[′sɪkǝn]vt.使患病；使恶心
长难句
1.This pollution is for the most part irrecoverable;the chain of evil it initiates not only in the world that must support life but in living tissues is for the most part irreversible.
大部分的污染是不可恢复的；污染所带来的坏处不仅仅体现在维持生命的世界中，也在活体生物组织之中，这种坏处大部分也是不可逆转的。
2.Strontium 90,released through nuclear explosion into the air,comes to earth in rain or drifts down as fallout,lodges in soil,enters into the grass or corn or wheat grown there,and in time takes up its abode in the bones of a human being,there to remain until his death.
从核爆炸中释放的锶90，被降雨或者宇宙尘埃带到地球，融入土壤，进入草丛、玉米、水稻等谷物之中，然后又进入到人体之中，在那里依存直至人体死亡。
The RevolutionⅠs U.S.
Thomas L.Friedman
This reading is from journalist Thomas L.Friedman’s 2000 book,the Lexus and the Olive Tree.
I believe in the five gas stations theory of the world.
That’s right:I believe you can reduce the world’s economies today to basically five different gas stations.First there is the Japanese gas station.Gas is$5 a gallon.Four men in uniforms and white gloves,with lifetime employment contracts,wait on you.They pump your gas.They change your oil.They wash your windows,and they wave at you with a friendly smile as you drive away in peace.Second is the American gas station.Gas costs only$1 a gallon,but you pump it yourself.You wash your own windows.You fill your own tires.And when you drive around the corner four homeless people try to steal your hubcaps.Third is the Western European gas station.Gas there also costs$5 a gallon. There is only one man on duty.He grudgingly pumps your gas and unsmilingly changes your oil,reminding you all the time that his union contract say he only has to pump gas and change oil.He doesn’t do window.He works only thirty-five hours a week,with ninety minutes off each day for lunch,during which time the gas station is closed.He also has six weeks’vocation every summer in the south of France.Across the street,his two brothers and uncle,who have not worked in ten years because their state unemployment insurance pay more than their last job,are playing boccie ball.Fourth is the developing-country gas station,fifteen people work there and they are all cousins.When you drive in,no one pays any attention to you because they are all too busy talking to each other.Gas in only 35 cents a gallon because it is subsidized by the government,but only one of the six pumps actually works.The others are broken and they are waiting for the replacement parts to be flown in from Europe.The gas station is rather run-down because the absentee owner lives in Zurich and takes all the profits out of the country.The owner doesn’t know that half his employees actually sleep in the repair shop at night and use the car wash equipment to shower.Most of the customers at the developing-country gas station either drive the latest-model Mercedes or a motor scooter—nothing in between,the place is always busy,though,because so many people stop in to use the air pump to fill their bicycle tires.Lastly there is the communist gas station.Gas there is only 50 cents a gallon—but there is none,because four guys working there have sold it all on the black market for $5 a gallon.Just one of the four guys who are employed at the communist gas station is actually there;the other three are working at second jobs in the underground economy and only come around once a week to collect their paychecks.
What is going on in the world today,in the very broadest sense,is that through the process of globalization everyone is being forced toward America’s gas station.If you are not an American and don’t know how to pump your own gas,I suggest you learn.With the end of the Cold War,globalization is globalizing Anglo-American-style capitalism and the Golden Straitjacket.It is globalizing American culture and cultural icons.It is globalizing the best of America and the worst of America.It is globalizing the American Revolution and it is globalizing the American gas station.
文章梗概
作者通过对加油站的五种描述，阐述了他对世界的五种理解：日本加油站代表日本模式的经济制度；美国加油站代表了美式自由主义市场经济；部分欧洲加油站是以契约精神为代表的经济制度；部分发展中国家加油站则是低效的代表；部分共产主义国家加油站则是腐败的代表。作者在第二段发表了当今世界的发展趋势：美式经济，并阐述了全球化对美国以及全球的影响。
词汇
absentee[，æbsǝn′ti]n.缺席者
reduce[ri′dʊs]vt.使处于
grudgingly[′grʌdʒiŋli]adv.勉强地；不情愿地
长难句
1.I believe you can reduce the world’s economies today to basically five different gas stations.
我认为你可以将世界经济简化为五种不同的加油站模式。
2.He grudgingly pumps your gas and unsmilingly changes your oil,reminding you all the time that his union contract say he only has to pump gas and change oil.
他极其不情愿地给你加气，面无表情地给你加油，并提醒你他的合同里只规定他只需要给你加气加油这些工作内容。
On How toⅠmprove Our Schools
What,then,can we do to improve schools and education?Plenty.
We must first of all have a vision of what good education is.We should have goals that are worth striving for.Everyone involved in education children should ask themselves why we educate.What is well-educated person?What knowledge is of most worth?What do we hope for when we end our children to school?What do we want them to learn and accomplish by the time they graduate from school?
Certainly we want them to be able to read and write and be numerate.But that is not enough.We want to prepare them for a useful life.We want them to be able to think for themselves when they are out in the world on their own.We want them to have good character and to make sound decisions about their life,their work and their health.We want them to face life’s jobs and travails with courage and humor.We hope that they will be kin and compassionate in their dealings with others.We want them to have a sense of justice and fairness.We want them to understand our nation and our world and the challenges we face.We want them to be active,responsible citizens,prepared to think issues through carefully,to listen to differing views and to reach decisions rationally.We want them to learn science and mathematics so they understand the problems of modern life and participate in finding solutions.We want them to enjoy the rich artistic and cultural heritage of our society and other societies.
If these are our goals,the current narrow,utilitarian focus of our national testing regime is not sufficient to reach any of them.Indeed,to the extent that we make the testing regime our master,we may see our true goals recede farther and farther in the distance.By our current methods,we may be training(not educating)a generation of children who are repelled by learning,thinking that it means only drudgery,worksheets,test preparation and test-taking.
Our nation’s commitment to provide universal,free public education has been a crucial element in the successful assimilation of millions of immigrants and in the ability of generations of Americans to improve their lives.As we seek to reform our schools,we must take care to do no harm.In fact,we must take care to make our public schools once again the pride of our nation.To the extent that we strengthen them,we strengthen our democracy
文章梗概
文章在开篇就提出了我们的教育应该驶向何方的问题，并在第二段用让步方式回答。而第二段的内容是最为基本的教育目标：使我们的孩子具备读写能力，有好的品性，积极应对人生的各种选择，并能够准备好克服生活的困难。但这些都不是现行教育制度所能保障的，因此作者更希望公立学校成为提高教育质量的主力，并使美国教育成为他们的骄傲。
词汇
accomplish[ǝ′kɑmplɪʃ]vt.完成；实现；达到
utilitarian[，jutɪlɪ′tɛrɪǝn]adj.功利的；功利主义的；实利的
recede[rɪ′sid]vi.后退；减弱vt.撤回
assimilation[ǝ，sɪmǝ′leʃǝn]n.同化；吸收
strengthen[′strɛŋθn]vt.加强；巩固
vision[′vɪʒǝn]n.视力；美景；眼力
drudgery[′drʌdʒǝri]n.苦工，苦差事
长难句
Our nation’s commitment to provide universal,free public education has been a crucial element in the successful assimilation of millions of immigrants and in the ability of generations of Americans to improve their lives.
我们国家承诺提供的大众免费教育是非常重要的，它使成千上万移民能够成功地融入这个国家，并提高几代美国人改善生活的能力。
The New Literacy
Clive Thompson
The following is excerpted from the August 2009 issue of Wired,a popular technology magazine.
As the school year begins,be ready to hear pundits fretting once again about how kids today can’t write—and technology is to blame.Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering,video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays,and texting has dehydrated language into“bleak,bald,sad shorted”(as University College of London English professor John Sutherland has moaned).An age of illiteracy is at hand, right?
Andrea Lunsford isn’t so sure.Lunsford is a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University.She has conducted some experiments on the literacy of students.The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That’s because so much socializing takes place online,and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did,a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing,as Lunsford calls it.Those twitter updated and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.
It’s almost hard to remember how a big a paradigm shift this is.Before the Internet came along,most Americans never wrote anything,ever,that wasn’t a school assignment.Unless they got a job that required producing text(like in law,
advertising,or media),they would leave school and virtually never construct a paragraph again.
But is this explosion of prose good,on a technical level?Yes,Lunsford’s team found that the students were remarkably adept at what rhetoricians call Kairosassessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across. The modern world of online writing,particularly in chat and on discussion threads,is conversational and public,which makes it closer to the Greek tradition of argument than the asynchronous letter and essay writing of 50 years ago.
文章梗概
文章作者在开篇抱怨学生在现代科技的影响下读写能力开始下降，进而提出文盲时代是不是已经到来。Stanford教授Lunsford却不这么认为，她通过实验发现，现代科技的出现恰恰增加了学生们使用文字交流的机会，而且文字使用的频度超过了过去以往的任何时代。同时，现代网络的出现也促使学生们能够精雕细琢某些词语与语气，这些都是科技提升学生读写能力的体现。文章开篇用提问的方式引出下文，又用实验发现来支撑观点，属于典型的议论文的写作思路。
词汇
fret[frɛt]vt.使烦恼；焦急；使磨损
narcissistic[，nɑrsɪ′sɪstɪk]adj.自恋的；自我陶醉的
pundits[′pʌndɪts]n.权威
blabber[′blæbɚ]n.多嘴的人；泄密者；胡言乱语vi.胡扯；喋喋不休dehydrate[di′haɪdret]vt.使⋯⋯脱水；使极其
口渴；使丧失力量和兴趣等vi.脱水；去水asynchronous[e′sɪŋkrǝnǝs]adj.[电]异步的；
不同时的；不同期的paradigm[′pærǝ′daɪm]n.范例；词形变化表
长难句
The modern world of online writing,particularly in chat and on discussion threads,is conversational and public,which makes it closer to the Greek tradition of argument than the asynchronous letter and essay writing of 50 years ago.
现代世界的网络写作，尤其是出现在聊天和讨论时，是对话形式和公开的，这就使写作相比于50年前的不同类型的书信而更接近于古代希腊传统的讨论方式。