考研英语时文阅读【3.14完】_派派后花园

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举报只看楼主使用道具楼主发表于: 2014-03-08 0

考研时文阅读（1）
FEW ideas in education are more controversial than vouchers---letting parents choose to educate their children wherever they wish at the taxpayer’s expense. First suggested by Milton Friedman, an economist, in 1955, the principle is compelling simple. The state pays; parents choose; schools compete; standards rise; everybody gains.
   Simple, perhaps, but it has aroused predictable----and often fatal---opposition from the educational establishment. Letting parents choose where to educate their children is a silly idea; professionals know best. Cooperation, not competition, is the way to improve education for all. Vouchers would increase inequality because children who are hardest to teach would be left behind.
  But these arguments are now succumbing to sheer weight of evidence. Voucher schemes are running in several different countries without ill-effects for social cohesion; those that use a lottery to hand out vouchers offer proof that recipients get a better education than those that do not.
  Harry Patrinos, an education economist at the World Bank, cites a Colombian program to broaden access to secondary schooling, known as PACES, a 1990s initiative that provided over 125,000 poor children with vouchers worth around half the cost of private secondary school. Crucially, there were more applicants than vouchers. The programme, which selected children by lottery, provided researchers with an almost perfect experiment, akin to the “pill-placebo” studies used to judge the efficacy of new medicines. The subsequent results show that the children who received vouchers were 15—20% more likely to finish secondary education, five percentage points less likely to repeat a grade, scorced a bit better on scholastic tests and were much more likely to take college entrance exams.
  Vouchers programmes in several American states have been run along similar lines. Greg Forster, a statistician at the Friedman Foundation, a charity advocating universal vouchers, says there have been eight similar studies in America: seven showed statistically significant positive results but was not designed well enough to count.
  The voucher pupils did better even though the sate spent less than it would have done had the children been educated in normal state schools. American voucher schemes typically offer private schools around half of what the sate would spend if the pupils stayed in public schools. The Colombian programme did not even set out to offer better schooling than was available in the state sector; the aim was simply to raise enrollment rates as quickly and cheaply as possible.
  These results are important because they strip out other influences. Home, neighborhood and natural ability all affect results more than which school a child attends. If the pupils who received vouchers differ from those who don’t----perhaps simply by coming from the sort of go-getting family that elbows its way to the front of every queue---any effect might simply be the result of any number of other factors. But assigning the vouchers randomly guarded against this risk.
  Opponents still argue that those who exercise choice will be the most able and committed, and by clustering themselves together in better schools they will abandon the weak and voiceless to languish in rotten ones. Some cite the example of Chile, where a universal voucher scheme that allows schools to charge top-up fees seems to have improved the education of the best-off most.
  The strongest evidence against this criticism comes from Sweden, where parents are freer than those in almost any other country to spend as they wish the money the government allocates to educating their children. Sweeping education reforms in 1992 not only relaxed enrolment rules in state sector, allowing students to attend schools outside their own municipality, but also let them take their state funding to private schools, including religious ones and those operating for profit. The only real restrictions imposed on private schools were that they must run their admissions on a first-come-first-served basis and promise not to charge top-up fees(most American voucher schemes impose similar conditions).
  The result has been burgeoning variety and a breakneck expansion of the private sector. At the time of the reforms only around 1% of Swedish students were educated privately; now 10% are, and growth in private schooling continues unabated.
  Anders Hultin of Kunskapsskolan, a chain of 26 Swedish schools founded by a venture capitalist in 1999 and now running at a profit, says its schools only rarely have to invoke the first-come-first-served rule----the chain has responded to demand by expanding so fast that parents keen to send their children to its schools usually get a place. So the private sector, by increasing the total number of places available, can ease the mad scramble for the best schools in the state sector(bureaucrats, by contrast, dislike paying for extra places in popular schools if there are vacancies in bad ones).
  More evidence that choice can raise standards for all comes from Caroline Hoxby, an economist at Harvard University, who has shown that when American public schools must compete for their students with schools that accept vouchers, their performance improves. Swedish researchers say the same. It seems that those who work in state schools are just like everybody else: they do better when confronted by a bit of competition.

   没有什么教育观念比学券更容易引发争议。所谓学券，就是让父母花纳税人的钱随意为孩子选择去哪里上学。经济学家Milton Friedman 1955年首次提出这一概念，其原则十分简单，但令人信服：即国家出钱；父母选择；学校竞争，标准提升；各方受益。
   这一原则虽然简单，但引发了教育机构的反对。这是预料之中的，但常常是致命的。让父母为孩子选择在何处接受教育的想法很荒唐；专业人士才是最懂行的。合作而非竞争才是提高所有学生教育水平的方式。学券会增加不平等，因为最难教的孩子将会被甩在后面。
   但是这些说法在强有力的证据面前正败下阵来。一些不同的国家正在实行学券计划，但并没有对社会疑聚力造成负面影响；用抽签方式发放学券的国家也证明：接受学券者比不接受学券者获得了更好的教育。
   世界银行的教育经济学家Harry Patrinos列举了20世纪90年代启动、被称做“PACES”的哥伦比亚项目。该项目旨在增加学生上中学的机会。它为12。5 万名贫困孩子提供了学券，其价值约为私立中学教育收费的一半。但关键问题是，申请人比学券多。该项目以抽签方式挑选学生，为研究人员提供了几乎完美无缺的实验，类似于用来判定新药疗效的“安慰剂”研究。后来的研究结果表明，接受学券的孩子完成中学学业的可能性要高出15%至20%，留级的可能性低5个百分点，在学术能力测试中的得分高些，也更有可能参加大学入学考试。
   美国也有几个州在类似方式实施学券计划。主张全面推广学券计划的慈善组织弗里德曼基金会的统计学家Greg Forster说，美国有8项类似的研究，其中7项研究的统计数据显示，学券对于那些幸运的获得者们具有明显的积极作用；第8项研究也显示了正面结果，但由于设计不佳不予考虑。
   尽管在与普通公立学校接受教育的学生相比，政府的支出要少，但接受学券的学生成绩却更好。美国的学券计划通常提供给私立学校费用为政府在公立学校学生身上投入的一半。哥伦比亚项目甚至没有把提供比公立学校更好的教育作为目标；其目标仅仅是尽快提高入学率，并提供尽可能便宜的教育。
   这些研究结果非常重要，因为他们完全排除了其它因素的影响。家庭背景、居住社区环境和天赋都比孩子在哪个学校就读更能影响结果。如果说拿到学券的学生与未能拿到学券的学生之间存在差异----或许仅仅由于前者来自那种事事争先，志在必得的家庭----任何差可能仅仅是其他多种因素作用的结果。但随机分配学券避免了这种风险。
   反对学券制者认为，那些择校的人能力最强、最执着，如果让他们在好学校扎堆儿，会将那些处于弱势地位、没有代言人的学生留在烂校长期受煎熬。有人举智利为例，该国普及了允许学校收取附加学费的学券计划，但似乎只最大程度地提高了最富裕学生的教育水平。
   反击这一批评的最有力的证据来自瑞典。瑞典的父母比几乎任何其它国家的人都自由，可随意支配政府分配的子女教育费用。1992年开始的全面改革不仅放宽了公立学校的入学要求，允许学生到他们所居住的城市以外的地方上学，而且也允许学生将国家的资助转到私立学校，包括宗教学校以及盈利性学校。对私立学校唯一真正的限制就是必须按“先来先得”的原则招收学生，并且要承诺不收取附加费（大多数美国学券计划也附加类似条件）。
   这样做的结果是办学形式越来越多样化，私立学校飞速增加。启动改革时，瑞典只有大约1%的学生在私立学校接受教育，现在达到了10%，而且在私立学校就读学生比例增长的趋势依然不减。
   一位风险资本家在1999年创办的Kunskapsskolan是一家拥有26所瑞典学校的连锁学校，现在正处于赢利状态。该校的Anders Hultin 说，各分校几乎没有用过“先来先得”的规则----为满足需求，连锁学校增加得非常快，愿意送孩子来该校读书的家长一般都能如愿。所以，通过增加学校数量，私立学校这一领域能够缓解公立学校领域疯狂争抢进入最好学校的压力（对比之下，如果劣等学校还有招生空间，政府官员就不愿意为增加名校招生拨款）。
   哈佛大学的经济学家Caroline Hoxby为择校能够提高所有学生水平提供了更多的证据。他已经证明，当美国的公立学校必须同接受学券的学校竞争生源时，它们的业绩就有进步。瑞典的研究人员也坚持同样的观点。看来，在公立学校工作的人就像其他人一样：面对一点竞争时，他们会做得更好。

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举报只看该作者沙发发表于: 2014-03-08 0

考研时文阅读（2）
Altruism（利他主义）, according to the text books, has two forms. One is known technically as kin selection, and familiarly as nepotism. This spreads an individual's genes collaterally, rather than directly, but is otherwise similar to his helping his own offspring. The second form is reciprocal altruism, or “you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours”. It relies on trust, and a good memory for favours given and received, but is otherwise not much different from simultaneous collaboration (such as a wolf pack hunting) in that the benefit exceeds the cost for all parties involved. Humans, however, show a third sort of altruism—one that has no obvious pay-off. This is altruism towards strangers, for example, charity. That may enhance reputation. But how does an enhanced reputation weigh in the Darwinian balance? To investigate this question, the researchers made an interesting link. At first sight, helping charities looks to be at the opposite end of the selfishness spectrum from conspicuous consumption. Yet they have something in common: both involve the profligate deployment of resources. That is characteristic of the consequences of sexual selection. An individual shows he (or she) has resources to burn—whether those are biochemical reserves, time or, in the human instance, money—by using them to make costly signals. That demonstrates underlying fitness of the sort favoured by evolution. Viewed this way, both conspicuous consumption and what the researchers call “blatant benevolence” are costly signals. And since they are behaviours rather than structures, and thus controlled by the brain, they may be part of the mating mind. Researchers divided a bunch of volunteers into two groups. Those in one were put into what the researchers hoped would be a “romantic mindset” by being shown pictures of attractive members of the opposite sex. They were each asked to write a description of a perfect date with one of these people. The unlucky members of the other group were shown pictures of buildings and told to write about the weather. The participants were then asked two things. The first was to imagine they had $5,000 in the bank. They could spend part or all of it on various luxury items such as a new car, a dinner party at a restaurant or a holiday in Europe. They were also asked what fraction of a hypothetical 60 hours of leisure time during the course of a month they would devote to volunteer work. The results were just what the researchers hoped for. In the romantically primed group, the men went wild with the Monopoly money. Conversely, the women volunteered their lives away. Those women continued, however, to be skinflints, and the men remained callously indifferent to those less fortunate than themselves. Meanwhile, in the other group there was little inclination either to profligate spending or to good works. Based on this result, it looks as though the sexes do, indeed, have different strategies for showing off. Moreover, they do not waste their resources by behaving like that all the time. Only when it counts sexually are men profligate and women helpful.（选自Economist, 08/02/2007）

参考译文
根据教科书，利他主义有两种表现形式：一种就是所谓的血缘选择，即家庭亲戚关系。这种利他主义是通过一个人的基因间接传播的，而不是直接的，但是另一方面也就像一个人会无私地帮助自己的孩子一样。第二种形式是互惠的利他主义，或者说“你帮我搓背我也帮你搓背”。这种利他主义的基础在于信任，并对自己得到和付出过的帮助保持较好的记忆，但是除此以外，这种利他主义和物种天然的合作关系（比如狼群共同寻找猎物）没有什么大的区别，因为对于所有的参与者来说，他们合作的所得远远超过其付出。但是人类却表现出了第三种利他主义—一种不会有什么赢利的利他主义。这是一种对陌生人的利他主义，比如说慈善业，从而能够增进人们的名誉。但是名誉的增加如何在达尔文平衡中找到其位置呢？为了探讨这一问题，研究者们找到了一个有趣的关系。乍一看，从自私角度来说参与慈善事业好像是炫耀性消费的相反面。但是他们有一点是相同的，即二者都包含了对资源的大规模调度。这是性别选择结果的一个特点。一个人想要显示他（或者她）拥有的可以挥霍的资源—无论是生化储备、时间、还是对于人类来说的金钱—通过使用这些东西来发出一些昂贵的信号。这也是进化过程中帮助物种生存下来的适切性。如果从这个角度来看问题的话，那么炫耀性消费和研究者们所称的“炫耀性善行”都是昂贵信号。而且它们都是行为而不是结构，因此是由大脑控制的，也许还是寻偶想法的一部分。研究者将一群志愿者分成了两组。他们向第一组的成员展示了一组相反性别的长得很漂亮或很帅的人们的照片，从而希望使志愿者们变得浮想联翩。接着研究者要求他们写一个关于自己和照片上的人的一次完美约会。而另一组的志愿者就没有这么幸运了，他们看到的是一组高楼大厦的图片，并要写一个关于天气的报告。然后研究人员要求参与者们做两件事情。第一件事情是要求他们想象自己在银行有5千美元。他们可以把其中一部分或者所有的钱花在各种奢侈品上，比如一辆新车、在餐馆的一次晚宴、或者去欧洲度假。第二件事情是，假设他们一周有60个小时的休闲时间，那么在一个月期间他们愿意花多少百分比的休闲时间在志愿者工作上。研究结果正如研究人员最初预料的那样。在充满浪漫气氛的第一组成员中，男人们疯狂地想完全占有金钱。相反，女人们则更愿意做志愿者工作。但是女人们却更加吝啬，而男人们却对财富的减少并不那么在意。同时，在另一组成员中，人们既不倾向于大肆挥霍、也没有认真工作的偏好。基于这一结果，看起来不同性别的人实际上对于炫耀有不同的策略。此外，他们不会总是把他们的资源浪费这些行为上。只有当吸引异性的时候，男人们才会花更多的钱、而女人们会更加乐于助人。

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举报只看该作者板凳发表于: 2014-03-08 0

考研时文阅读（3、4）
Digital books start a new chapter
导读：第一代电子书并没有取得预期的成功，然而随着技术的进步，新一代电子书产品逐渐浮出水面。继苹果公司取得巨大成功，令便携电子产品风行一时后，索尼公司利用“数字墨水”技术推出新款图书阅览器，将目光瞄准电子书市场。其它电子阅读器生产商也不甘落后，纷纷推出带有各自特色的产品。本文向读者介绍了电子阅读器产品的最新动态，以及出版商、作家和消费者对这种新生事物的态度。可以想象，电子书时代已经离我们不远了。（选自 Business Week, 2006）
  Richard D. Warren, a 58-year-old lawyer in California, is halfway through Ken Follett’s novel Jackdaws. But he doesn't bother carrying around the book itself. Instead, he has a digital version of Follett he reads on his Palm Treo each morning as he communtes by train to San Francisco from his home in Berkeley. He’s a big fan of such digital books. Usually, there are around seven titles on his Treo, and he buys at least two new ones each month. “It is just so versatile , ” he says. “I’ve tried to convert some friends to this, but they think it’s kind of geeky.”
  Geeky? For now, maybe, but not for much longer. Many experts are convinced that digital books, after plenty of false starts, are finally ready for takeoff. “Every other forms of media has gone digital---music, newspapers, movies, ”says Joni Evans, a top literary agent who just left the Willian Morris Agency to start her won company that will focus on books and technology. “We’re the only industry that hasn’t lived up to the pace of technology. A revolution is around the corner.”
  What developments have won over people like Evans? Portable devices are becoming lighter and more appealing. Books are being scanned into digital form by the thousands. The most important step forward may be in “digital ink,” the technology used for displaying letters on a screen. A small company called E Ink has created a method for arranging tiny black and white capsules into words and images with an electronic charge. Because no power is used unless the reader changes the page, devices with the technology could go as long as 20 books between battery charges. The text also looks just as sharp as ink on a printed page, since each capsule is the size and pigment of a grain of laser-jet toner.
  Sony is the first major player to take advantage of the technology. This spring, it will debut the Sony Reader, which uses E Ink and closely mimics the size, weight, and feel of a book. The Reader will sell for about $ 400. Sony also will offer roughly 10,000 book titles for download from its online store, along with news stories and blog items.
  Other pklayers sniff opportunity, too. At least two more companies are introducing digital readers this year. And scorces of companies, from Google to Random House Inc., are angling for other ways to profit from digital books. Chalk it up to the influence of Apple Computer Inc.. With its Ipod, Apple has demonstrated that millions of people are willing to carry around digital devices with their favorite content. After music, why not novels and nonfiction? “The iPod led the way in getting people comfortable with [a similar device for books],” says Jack Romanos, CEO of Simon & Schuster Inc.. “These things are not only inevitable, but a good idea. ”

   加利福尼亚州58岁的律师Richard D. Warren 已经把Ken Follett的小说《寒鸦》读了一半，但他不必将书天天带到身边。事实上，每天早晨在他乘火车从伯克利的家里赶往旧金山上班的途中，他可以用自己的Palm Treo阅读该小说的电子版。沃伦对电子书非常痴迷。他的Treo里通常存有大约7本书，每个月他至少会买两本新书。他说：“它的用途很多，我曾劝说一些朋友改看电子书，但他们觉得有点前卫。”
   前卫？也许吧，但只是现在，用不了多久这种情况就会改变。许多专家确信，在经历了多次不成功的尝试后，电子书终于可以大展身手了。琼斯埃文斯是一位资深的作者对外事物代理人，她刚刚离开威廉莫里斯经纪公司。她说：“所有其它内型的媒体---音乐、报纸、电影----都走向了数字化。我们是唯一未能赶上科技步伐的产业。变革指日可待。”
   电子书有什么新进展，能够吸引像埃文斯这样的人？便携设备变得更轻便、更时尚。成千上万册图书正在被扫描成数字格式。“数字墨水”或许是最重大的技术突破，它能将文字显示于屏幕上。一家名叫E Ink的小公司发明了一种方法，用电荷排列黑白粒子形成文字图案。由于只有当用户翻页时才会耗电，所以采用该技术的装置能让读者连续看20本书而不需要充电。显示文本酷似白纸黑字，因为这种微粒的大小和色质与激光打印机的墨粉颗粒一模一样。
   第一个采用这种技术的大厂家是索尼。今年春天，索尼将首次推出采用E Ink技术的“索尼阅读器”，在大小、重量和手感方面都酷似真书。阅读器的售价约为400美元。除了新闻报道和博客文章外，索尼还将在网上书店提供大约1万本电子书供用户下载。
   其它厂家也闻风而动。今年至少还有两家公司将推出自己的电子阅读器。包括Google和蓝登书屋在内的几十家公司都在争取通过其它途径从电子书中获利。苹果电脑公司的影响也是促成电子书兴起的一大原因。苹果公司用iPod 证明，随身携带存有个人喜爱内容的电子产品正被千百万人所接受。除了听音乐，为什么不可以用它来阅读小说和写实类文学作品呢？西蒙古—舒斯特出版公司首席执行官杰克罗曼诺斯说“iPod开时尚之先河，使人们（对供阅读图书用的类似电子产品）乐在其中。这不仅仅是大势所趋，而且别具创意。”

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举报只看该作者地板发表于: 2014-03-08 0

续上篇《电子阅读》
  No book company has come close to Apple’s magic touch. But the technology, availability of content, and consumer behavior may be aligned for a breakthrough this year. “The puzzle pieces are on the table, ” says aTimothy O’Reilly, founder of the tech publisher O’Reilly Media. “You’ve got the ctitical mass of content, and you’ve got attractive hardware. What we don’t have yet is an attractive business model that connects them all together.”
Sony is clearly attempting to pulloff this feat. Its combinations of devices and online store is reminiscent of Apple’s approach. The Reader is impressive: a slim, sturdy package that weighs nine ounces and comes bound in heavy faux leather. But it’s unlikely just yet to become the kind of cult hit Apple has on its hands. The Reader’s controls can be clumsy to use. Plus, new books for the device will cost about the same as books from megastores like Borders, and readers will have to search the Web on their own to get classics that have gone off copyright for free.
  The other makers of digital readers are treading cautiously. Jinke, a Chinese company, plans to sell into the education field in China and other markets. But it declined to comment in detail on its plans. Irex Technologies, a spin-off from Royal Philips Electronics, says it will make a device available for sale by April. CEO Willem Endhoven says the company will begin by selling to companies, such as newspapers or textbook publishers, rather than directly to consumers.
  There are sure to be other companies that introduce readers in the months and years ahead. Plastics Logic Inc., a British startup, is working on a flexible display the size of an 8 1/2-in.-by-11-in. piece of paper that can receive books, news, or e-mail wirelessly. It’s partnering with Japan’s NTT DoCoMo and plans to have a product on the market by early 2008.
There’s even speculation that Apple could come out with its own device, an iPod designed for books. The secretive company hasn’t said anything publicly and declined to comment for this article.
  Just as digital readers are hitting the market, the number of books on the Net is swelling to Library of Congress proportions. Google, through an initiative it began a year ago, is scanning millions of books from five of the world’s largest libraries and plans to make the contents searchable online. The effort has drawn the ire of publishers and authors, since it’s digitizing some books still under copyright. Publishers sued last fall for copyright infringement and the case is pending. (One of the plaintiffs in the case is The McGraw-Hill Companies, the parent of Business Week. )
                                New Literary Models
  Yet Google is helping ignite the digital market. In November, following the lawsuit, Random House announced plans to digitize 25,000 titles. It will sell access to them to consumers, charging a per page rate for everything from novels to recipes out of a cookbook. In December, HarperCollins Publishers Inc. said it would build a digital warehouse of its entire holdings---another 25,000 titles or so---which it may later sell over the Net.
  Amazon.com is moving aggressive into digital books, too. It sells digital versions of most of its titles, available for download instantly. In August, it launched Amazon Shorts, a collection of stories, novellas, and essays that can be downloaded for 49 cents a piece. Later this year it plans to offer shoppers who purchase traditional books the chance to buy a version they can read on the Web, too. That way they could keep Stephen King’s Cell: A Novel on their nightstand and read a chapter from any computer with Net access. “We think consumers increasingly are ready for it, ” says Steve Kessel, vice-president for worldwide digital media.
  Authors are intrigued by the opportunities to go digital. George Saunders, a short story author and professor of English at Syracuse University, says he’d like a way to get his work out to readers more quickly. After the scandal broke over James Frey’s falsehoods in his hit book A Million Little Pieces, Saunders penned a humorous essay stemming from the events. It was a confession to Oprah Winfrey that all of the fiction he’d written had, in fact, been true. But Saunders had a ahrd time getting the piece published quickly, and now it feels dated. “There might be a different model for a literary community that’s quicker, more real-time, and involves more spontaneity, ” he says. If digital books finally do take-off, they could change not only how we read, but what we read, too.

    没有一家图书公司能像苹果电脑公司那样点石成金。但是如果把技术、可供使用的内容和消费者行为等因素整合在一起，今天电子书或许能实现突破。技术出版商奥莱理媒体公司的创始人提姆奥莱理说：“拼图的各个部件都在桌上。你不但有制作电子书所必须的大量内容资源，还有极具吸引力的硬件。我们还缺乏的是一个将它们整合起来的成功商业模式。”
    显然，索尼正试图完成这一业绩。把设备和网上结合起来颇似苹果公司的手法。“索尼阅读器”外观令人印象深刻：一个薄而坚固的盒子，重9盎司，外包厚实的人造革。但它可能不会像苹果公司的iPod那样成为风靡一时的时尚产品。“索尼阅读器”的控制键用起来可能不太灵活。此外，用于这种阅读器的新书售价几乎和鲍德斯之类的大型图书零售店里出售的图书一样。用户必须自行上网搜索并下载已经过了版权保护期的免费经典著作。
   其它电子阅读器的制造商则在谨慎行事。中国公司津科打算向教育界和其它市场推出它的电子阅读器，但公司解决透露计划的详细内容。从皇家飞利浦电子有限公司分拆出来的公司Irex Technologies声称，今年4月其新款电子阅读器将上市销售。公司首席执行官威廉恩霍芬称，他们一开始时会向报纸或教科书出版商之类的企业进行销售，而不是直接面向消费者。
   毋庸置疑，在今后几个月和几年内还会有其它公司推出电子阅读器。英国新兴的Plastic Logic 公司正在开发一种长11英寸、宽8.5 英寸的一张纸大小的柔性电子显示屏，可以无线接受电子书、新闻或电子邮件。它正在和日本NTT DoCoMo公司合作，计划在2008年初将产品推向市场。
有人甚至猜测，苹果公司会推出自己的电子阅读器----一种为电子书设计的iPod。但苹果公司守口如瓶，未在公开场合透露任何信息，也拒绝对此发表评论。
在电子阅读器蜂拥进入市场的同时，网上提供的电子书也迅速增加，甚至达到国会图书馆的藏书规模。Google于一年前发起一项计划，对五家世界最大的图书馆的数百万册藏书进行扫描，使其内容能在网上搜索到。这项计划激怒了图书出版商和作者，因为一些被数字化的图书仍然有版权保护。去年秋天，图书出版商起诉Google 侵犯版权，这起官司仍然悬而未决（该案的起诉方之一是《商业周刊》的母公司麦格罗希尔国际出版公司）。
                            新的文学模式？
   尽管如此，Google对推动电子书市场的发展功不可没。紧随着这起官司，蓝登书屋于去年11月宣布其计划推出2.5万本图书的数字版。公司将按页计费，向消费者出售这些电子书，种类从小说到菜谱无所不有。去年12月，哈珀柯林斯图书出版公司宣布，将把公司出版的所有书籍-----大约也有2.5万本左右-----建成电子书库，之后可能在网上加以出售。
   亚马孙网站也在雄心勃勃地进军电子书市场。网站上的大多数图书都有电子版可供销售，并能够及时下载。去年8月，亚马孙还推出了汇集有短篇故事、小说和散文的“亚马孙短篇集锦”，读者可以以每本49美分的价格下载。今年晚些时候，它打算向购买传统图书的顾客同时提供购买可供网上阅读的版本的机会。这样，他们就能把斯蒂芬金的《手机》留在床头柜上，同时还能在任何联网的电脑上阅读其中的某一章节。负责世界数字媒体的副总裁史蒂夫凯赛尔说：“我们认为消费者越来越乐于接受电子书了。”
   作家们对有机会出电子版图书也很感兴趣。短篇小说作家，希拉丘斯大学英语教授乔治桑德斯说，他愿意通过某种方式让读者更快地接触到他的作品。当詹姆斯费雷在其畅销书《岁月如沙》中造假的丑闻曝光后，桑德斯据此写了一篇幽默散文，在文中弗雷向奥普拉温弗利坦白道，事实上他写的所有小说都却有此事。但桑德斯当时很难迅速发表这篇文章，而现在它已经有点过时了。他说，“对文学界来说，或许有一种不同的模式能够使图书出版变得更快、更同步和拥有更多自发性。”假如电子书最终真能流行起来，它们改变的不仅是我们的阅读方式，还有我们的阅读内容。

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举报只看该作者 4楼发表于: 2014-03-08 0

考研时文阅读（5）
注：近几年环境保护类的文章也是考试的重点，希望大家好好阅读这篇时文。
                Protecting Earth’s Last Frontier 保护地球的最后边疆
  In 1962, John Glenn relayed this message to mission control when his pioneering flight on the Friendship 7 spacecraft passed across Western Australia at night: “The lights show up very well. Thank everyone for turning them on, will you?”
  If he looked down from space today he might no longer see just the lights of our cities but the many lights of fishing boats. These lights can be so dense that they visibly can be so dense that they visibly outline the outer part of the South American continental shelf and entire seas in Asia.
  These lights are from fishers using light to lure squis. This intense activity symbolizes the broader plight of our oceans. The imposing footprint of humanity has advanced from our shores and into the high seas, the ocean waters beyond national jurisdiction. This footprint damages and depletes almost everything in its path.
  With the depletion of the cod fishery and so many other coastal fish stocks worldwide, the fishing industry has turned to the high seas to exploit their resources. Fishing operations are targeting the seamounts, oceanic ridges and pateaus of the deep ocean beyond natioanl jurisdiction, where ownership and responsibility don’t lie with any nation.
  In the course of a decade or more, we have caused significant damage to largely unknown ecosystems, depleted species and probably doomed many others to extinction. Every day, commercial fishing fleets dispatched primarily from just 11 nations venture onto the high seas to fish the deep ocean with seabed trawls.
  They deploy massive gear with names like “canyon” buster that indicate the sheer scales involved and the damage they inflict. Everything along their path, from ancient corals and sponges to 250-year-old fish, is stripped away and caught in their nets. In a single trawl, lumps of sponges, corals, and other species, together weighing as much as 10,000 pounds, can be removed. What is left is truly a stark, sterile, undersea desert.
  The high seas are very special. It is here where you can find dense groupings of animals that derive their energy from sources other than the sun around volcanic vents on the deep sea floor. It is only here where you can find areas still free from introduced species, as in the seas around Antarctica. And it is here where you can find living organisms that are more than 8,000 years old, like many of the massive deep-sea corals.
  But what really sets the high seas apart from all other areas we know is the overwhelming lack of protection for any of this natural heritage.
  A United Nations meeting this week finally put the high seas on the map and on the agenda. Governmental officials from around the world gathered together with scientists, representatives from the fishing sector, conservation groups and other stakeholders to discuss conversation and sustainable use of amrine biological diversity in the high seas, covering 64 percent of the earth’s surface.
  They need to move quickly. Given the fragility of these environments, we simply do not have the luxury of time, but we can act before it is too late.
  As we continue to build our understanding of the oceans and life within, we must establish marine protected areas that extend beyond just the areas we know today to be valuable or threatened.
  We must place biodiversity conservation at the center of ocean governance, build the precautionary approach into the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and ensure that every activity in these areas beyond national jurisdiction----be it fishing, mining, transportation, tourism or research----is conducted in a sustainable manner that is fair to present and future generations.
  We must recognize that all of the geographical, geological and biological parts of the oceans are interrelated, interdependent and equal one tremendously significant ecosystem whole.
  Right now, we have this opportunity to prevent the extinction of countless species and ecosystems that are only just being discovered, let alone understood. Now is the time to protect our last undiscovered wilderness, the world’s final frontier---the high seas.

  　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
                             保护地球的最后边疆
  1962年，当约翰格伦首次驾驶“友谊7号”太空船于晚上穿越澳大利亚西部时，他向任务控制中心传达了这样一条信息：“灯光看得很清楚。请感谢每一位打开电灯的人，好吗？ ” 如果现在他从太空往下看，看到的也许不再只是我们城市的万家灯火。还会看到渔船的点点灯光。渔船的灯光非常密集，可以清清楚楚地勾勒出南美大陆架的外部轮廓以及整个亚洲海域的轮廓。
  这些灯光是渔民用来引诱鱿鱼的。如此强度的捕鱼活动意味着我们的海洋所面临的困境日益加深。人类强行留下的痕迹已由海岸推进到不属于任何国家管辖的公海。这些足迹所到之处破坏并耗尽了几乎一切资源。
  随着全世界鳕鱼和其它众多沿海鱼类资源逐渐枯竭，捕鱼业已转向公海开发鱼类资源。捕鱼作业现在瞄准的是不受任何国家管辖的深海的海山，海脊和高原，因为这些地方的所有权和责任不属于任何国家。
  在十年多的时间里，我们已对大量未知的生态系统造成了重大的破坏，使许多物种枯竭，还可能使许多物种遭受灭绝的厄运。每天，主要由１１个国家派出的商业捕鱼船进入公海，用海底拖网进行深海捕捞。
  他们所调用的庞大设备所取的名字都是诸如“峡谷战神”之类，由此可见其作业规模及造成的破坏之大。所经之处，从古珊瑚，海绵到２５０岁的鱼，被洗劫一空，尽入其网。一张拖网就能网起成堆的海绵，珊瑚及其它物种，总重量可达１万磅。拖网过后留下的只是一片荒凉，贫瘠的海底沙漠。
  公海是个特别之处。在这儿，你能发现密集的动物群，它们所摄取的能量不是来自深海底部的火山口周围的阳光。只有在这儿，你才能发现还有像南极洲周围的海域那样的尚没有引进物种的海域。也只有在这儿，你才能发现存活了８０００多年的生物，例如许多巨大的深海珊瑚。
  但是公海与其它所有我们知道的海域真正不同之处在于，对这一自然遗产的保护非常缺乏。本周的一次联合国会议终于突出了公海问题的重要性并将其排上议事日程。全世界的政府官员和科学家，捕鱼业的代表，自然资源保护组织及其它利益相关者会聚一堂，讨论对覆盖地球表面６４％的公海海洋生物多样物种进行保护和可持续性开发利用的问题。
  他们需要赶快行动。鉴于这些生物环境的脆弱性，我们真的耽搁不起，但我们还能亡羊补牢。
随着我们对海洋和海洋生物越来越了解，我们必须建立海洋保护区，起范围要超出我们今天所知的有价值的或会受到威胁的那些区域。
  我们必须把保护生物多样性放在海洋管理的中心地位，把建立防范措施写进《联合国海洋法公约》，确保在这些不属于任何国家管辖的区域内的每项活动――无论是捕鱼，采矿，运输，旅游，还是科学研究――都本着公平对待我们这代人和子孙后代的原则，以可持续发展的方式展开。
  我们必须意识到，海洋在地理，地质和生物方面都是相互关联，相互依存的，共同构成了一个极其重要的完整的生态系统。
  现在，我们有这个机会防止刚被发现，更不用说了解的无数物种和生态系统。当前正是保护我们最后一块尚未发现的未开发之地，世界的边疆――公海――的时候了。

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举报只看该作者 5楼发表于: 2014-03-08 0

考研时文阅读(6)
注:这是一篇音乐与孩子智力关系研究方面的文章,希望大家认真阅读. 选自<时代>杂志.
  The phrase “Mozart Effect” conjures an image of a pregnant woman who, putting headphones conspicuously over her belly, is convinced that playing classical music to her unborn child will improve the kids’ intelligence. But is there science to back up this idea, which has brought about a cottage industry of books, CDs and videos?
  A short paper published in Nature in 1993 unwittingly introduced the supposed Mozart effect to the masses. Psychologist Frances Rauscher’s study involved 36 college kids who listened to either 10 minutes of a Mozart sonata, a relaxation track or silence before performing several spatial reasoning tasks. In one test----determining what a paper folded several times over and then cut might look like when unfolded---students who listened to Mozart seemed to show significant improvement in their performance (by about eight to nine spatial IQ points).
  In addition to a flood of commercial products in the wake of the finding, in 1998 then---Georgia governor Zell Miller mandated that mothers of newborns in the state be given classical music CDs. And in Florida, day care centers were required to broadcast symphonies through their sound systems.
  Earlier this year, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany published a second review study from a cross-disciplinary team of musically inclined scientists who declared the phenomenon nonexistent. “I would simply say that there is no compelling evidence that children who listen to classical music are going to have any improvement in cognitive abilities,” adds Rauscher, now an associate professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. “It’s really a myth, in my humble opinion.”
  Rather than passively listening to music, Rauscher advocates putting an instrument into the hands of a youngster to raise intelligence. She cites a 1997 University of California, Los Angels, study that found that, among 25,000 students, those who had spent time involved in a musical pursuit tested higher on SATs and reading proficiency exams than those with no instruction in music.
  Despite its rejection by the scientific community, companies like Baby Genius continue to peddle classical music to parents of children who can supposedly listen their way to greater smarts.
  Chabris says the real danger isn’t in this questionable marketing, but in parents shirking roles they are evolutionarily meant to serve. “It takes away from other kinds of interaction that might be beneficial for children,” such as playing with them and keeping them engaged via social activity. That is the key to a truly intelligent child, not the symphonies of a long-dead Austrian composer.

  “莫扎特效应”这个词让人想到这样的画面：一位孕妇把耳机显眼地放在肚子上，深信给未出世的孩子播放古典音乐会提高宝宝的智力。这个观点催生了一大批粗制滥造的书籍、CD和视频节目，但它是否有科学依据呢？
   1993年发表于《自然》杂志的一篇简短的论文无意中把所谓的莫扎特效应介绍给了大众。心理学家费朗西丝劳舍尔的这项研究是让36名大学生在10分钟内，或听一段令人放松的莫扎特奏鸣曲，或呆在静默环境里，之后再去完成几道空间推理作业题。在一项测试中----判断一张折叠多次再剪过的纸张在展开时会变成什么样子------听过莫扎特音乐学生的成绩似乎有显著提高（空间IQ得分提高了8到9分）。
   这一研究成果不仅带来了大量的相关产品，1998年，当时的佐治亚州州长Zell Miller还下令给本州的新生儿妈妈派发古音乐CD，而佛里里达州则要求托儿所利用它们的音响系统播放交响乐。
   今年早些时候，德国联邦教育与研究部发表了一份由懂音乐的科学家组成的跨学科小组完成的复审报告，声明这样的观点并不存在。“我只想说，没有令人信服的证据证明听古典音乐的孩子在认知能力方面会有什么提高，”现任威斯康星大学奥什科什分校心理学副教授的劳舍尔补充说，“依拙见，这纯属虚构。”
劳舍尔主张让孩子亲手演奏乐器来提高智力，而不是被动地听音乐。她引用了1997年在洛杉矶的加州大学进行的一项研究来作为例证。该研究发现，在2万5千名学生中，与没有学习过演奏乐器的学生相比，那些付出时间学习演奏一种乐器的人在学业能力倾向测试和阅读能力测试中取得了更好的成绩。
尽管受到科学界的否定，像“神童”这样的公司仍继续向家长们兜售古典乐，宣称孩子听了古典音乐就能增长聪明才智。
   查伯里斯说，真正的危险不在于这种令人置疑的营销活动，而在于父母亲逃避天职。“这贬低了对孩子可能有利的其它互动形式，”如陪孩子一起玩耍和让他们参与社交活动。对一个真正聪明的孩子来说，这才是关键，而不是一位早已作古的奥地利作曲家的交响乐。

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等级: 内阁元老

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举报只看该作者 6楼发表于: 2014-03-09 0

考研时文阅读（7）
In future, as newspaper fade and change, will politicians therefore burgle their opponents’ offices with impunity, and corporate villains whoop as they trample over their victims ? Journalism schools and think-tanks, especially in America, are worried about the effect of a crumbling Fourth Estate. Are today’s news organizations “up to the task of sustaining the informed citizenry on which democracy depends? ” asked a recent report about newspapers from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, a charitable research foundation.
  Nobody should relish the demise of once-great titles. But the decline of newspapers will not be as harmful to society as some fear. Democracy, remember, has already survived the huge television-led decline in circulation since the 1950s. It has survived as readers have shunned papers and papers have shunned what was in stuffier times thought of as serious news. And it will surely survive the decline to come.
  That is partly because a few titles that invest in the kind of investigative stories which often benefit society the most are in a good position to survive, as long as their owners do a competent job of adjusting to changing circumstances. Publications like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal should be able to put up the price of their journalism to compensate for advertising revenues lost to the internet---especially as they cater to a more global readership. As with many industries, it is those in the middle---neither highbrow, nor entertainingly populist----that are likeliest to fall by the wayside.
  The usefulness of the press goes much wider than investigating abuses or even spreading general news; it lies in holding governments to account----trying them in the court of public opinion. The internet has expanded this court. Anyone looking for information has never been better equipped. People no longer have to trust a handful of national papers or, worse, their local city paper. News-aggregation sites such as Google News draw together sources from around the world. The website of Britain’s Guardian now has nearly half as many readers in America as it does at home.
  In addition, a new force of “citizen” journalists and bloggers is itching to hold politicians to account. The web has opened the closed world of professional editors and reporters to anyone with a keyboard and an internet connection. Several companies have been chastened by amateur postings----of flames erupting from Dell’s laptops or of cable TV repairmen asleep on the sofa. Each blogger is capable of bias and slander, but, taken as a group, bloggers offer the searcher after truth boundless material to chew over. Of course, the internet panders to closed minds; but so has much of the press.
  For hard-news reporting---as opposed to comment---the result of net journalism have admittedly been limited. Most bloggers operate from their armchairs, not the frontline, and citizen journalist tend to stick to local matters. But it is still early days. New online models will spring up as papers retreat. One non-profit group, New Assignment.Net, plans to combine the work of amateurs and professionals to produce investigative stories on the internet. Aptly, $10,000 of cash for the project has come from Craig Newmark, of Craigslist, a group of free classified-advertisement websites that has probably done more than anything to destroy newspapers’ income.
  In future, argues Carnegie, some high-quality journalism will also be backed by non-profit organizations. Already, a few respected news organizations sustain themselves that way----including the Guardian, the Christian Science Monitor and National Public Radio. An elite group of serious newspapers available everywhere online, independent journalism backed by charities, thousands of fired-up bloggers and well-informed citizen journalists: there is every sign that Arthur Miller’s national conversation will be louder than ever.

  将来，随着报纸的消失和变化，政客们会撬窃对手的办公室而不受惩罚吗？公司恶棍会欢呼着践踏受害者的权益吗？尤其是在美国，各个新闻学院和智囊机构对报业新闻消亡带来的后果忧心忡忡。慈善研究机构纽约Carnegie Corporation 最近一份关于报纸的报告质问：如今的新闻机构“是否能够完成向作为民主制度基石的公民提供全面信息的任务？”
  谁也不应该对曾经伟大的报纸的消亡感到高兴。但是，报纸的衰落并不会像一些人所担心的那样对社会造成极大的危害。不要忘记，20世纪50年代以来民主制度已经经受了报纸销量因电视出现而大幅下滑的考验。当读者避开报纸，报纸避开了在保守时代被认为是严肃新闻的东西时，民主仍然存活下来。那么它也一定能经受住即将到来的报纸的衰落。
  部分原因是，少数花本钱做那种通常给社会带来最大益处的调查性新闻报道的大报，只要其所有者能够很好地适应变化的环境，就不用担心生存问题。像《纽约时报》，《华尔街日报》这样的出版物，应该能够提高报纸的价格，以弥补广告业务流向网络造成的收入损失----尤其是当读者更具全球性时。像许多行业一样，那些处于中间地位的报纸-----既没有很高的文化品位，又没有娱乐性的大众口味----最容易被淘汰。
报纸的作用远远超出了调查舞弊，甚至传播消息，其作用在于监督政府承担责任----在公共舆论的法庭中审判他们。网络扩大了这个法庭。任何寻找信息的人从来没有像现在这样方便。人们不必再相信少数几个全国性大报纸，或者更糟糕的是，他们本地的城市报纸。像“谷歌新闻”这样的专门的新闻网站收集了世界各地的新闻来源。英国《卫报》网站在美国的读者几乎是在英国本土的一半。
  另外，公民“记者”和博客组成的新力量正跃跃欲试地要监督政治家负起责任。网络为任何一个有键盘和网络连接的人打开了职业编辑和新闻记者的封闭世界。有些公司已受到业余爱好者的发帖指责，这些帖子指控戴尔手提电脑会着火，或者指控有线电视维修员在沙发上睡大觉。每个博客都有可能抱有偏见和说些诽谤性的话，但是作为整体，博客们为寻找真相的人们提供了大量值得仔细琢磨的材料。当然，网络会迎合闭塞僵死的思想，但是更多报纸也是如此。
  就与评论相比的硬新闻而言，网络新闻的成效显然有限。多数博客是在自己的椅子上写作，而不是在新闻前线，而且公民记者倾向于只关注本地事件。但它仍然处于初期阶段。随着报纸的退却，新的在线模式将迅速涌现。一个非赢利网络团体“新闻工作网”计划把业余记者和专业记者联合起来，在网络上推出调查性新闻报道。克雷格新闻组（一个免费分类广告网站集团）的创办人克雷格纽马克给“新闻工作网”及时地捐赠了一万美金。该网站集团作得最多的可能就是损害报纸的收入。
  卡内基认为，将来一些高质量的新闻也会得到非赢利机构的支持。几家有影响的新闻机构已经靠此方式生存，包括《卫报》，《基督教科学箴言报》和美国国家公共电台。一些严肃的精英报纸都有网络版，世界各地都可以阅读，独立的新闻报道得到慈善机构、成千上万的热心博客和消息灵通的公民记者的支持。这一切完全表明，阿瑟米勒的全国性交谈会比以前声音更响。

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举报只看该作者 7楼发表于: 2014-03-09 0

考研时文阅读(8)
导读: 本文为说明文，主要介绍带薪请假政策的起因，制定和实施情况，以及所面临的问题和反对意见。文章首先以加罗一家的经历说明停薪请假的人所面临的经济困难。然后在第二，第三段介绍了一下各州针对这一问题的解决方案。第四段介绍了反对者的态度和看法，最后一段再次以加罗一家的情况来说明带薪请假政策可能带来的积极变化，并且呼应了文章开头部分，以此作为结尾，使得全文层次分明，结构完整。
    When Gina Garro and Brian Duplisea adopted 4-month-old Andres from Colombia last month, they were determined to take time off from work to care for him. Six years ago, after their daughter, Melina, was born, the family scraped by on Duplisea's $36,000 salary as a construction worker so Garro, a special-education teacher, could stay home. Now, since Garro's job furnishes the family health insurance, she'll head back to work this fall while Duplisea juggles diapers and baby bottles. His boss agreed to the time off--but he will have to forgo his $18-an-hour pay. It won't be easy. Though Garro's $40,000 salary will cover their mortgage, the couple will have to freeze their retirement accounts, scale back on Melina's after-school activities--and pray that nothing goes wrong with the car. "It takes away from your cushion and your security," says Garro. "Things will be tight."
   “ 我们不得不做出牺牲”州政府愿意为停薪请假的人报销帐单. 上个月，吉纳•加罗和布莱恩•杜普里希从哥伦比亚收养四个月大的安德烈时，这对夫妇决定请假照顾他。六年前，他们的女儿梅丽娜出生后，这家人靠着杜普里希作建筑工人每年36,000美元的薪水勉强度日，这样，从事特殊教育教学的加罗就可以呆在家里照顾孩子。如今，因为加罗的工作能够为家庭提供医疗健康保险，她将在今年秋季回去工作，而让杜普里希摆弄那些尿片和婴儿奶瓶。他的老板同意他请假---但他必须为此放弃十八美元一小时的报酬。这可有些让这个家庭犯难。虽然加罗40,000美元的年薪可以支付他们的抵押贷款，但夫妇俩却不得不冻结他们的退休帐户，减少梅丽娜的课后活动开支---还要祷告汽车别出问题。“我们不再后顾无忧，”加罗说道：“生活会变得很拮据。”
   The 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act was supposed to help families like Garro's, offering a safety net to employees who want to take time off to nurture newborns, tend to their own major illnesses or care for sick relatives. But while the law guarantees that workers won't lose their jobs, it doesn't cover their paychecks. One survey last year showed that while 24 million Americans had taken leaves since 1999, 2.7 million more wanted to, but couldn't afford it. That may change soon. In response to increasing demands from voters, at least 25 states are now exploring new ways to offer paid leave. One possibility: tapping state disability funds. A handful of states--New York, New Jersey, California, Rhode Island and Hawaii--already dip into disability money to offer partial pay for women on maternity leave. But that doesn't help dads or people caring for elderly parents. New Jersey and New York may soon expand disability programs to cover leave for fathers and other caretakers. Thirteen states, including Arizona, Illinois and Florida, have proposed using unemployment funds to pay for leave.
   1993年颁布的《家庭医疗休假法》本来应该帮助像加罗这样的家庭，为那些请假照顾新生儿，治疗重病或者照顾患病亲人的员工提供一个安全保障。可是，法律虽然可以保证这些员工不至于丢掉工作，却不能支付他们的薪水。去年的一项调查显示，虽然从1999年以来有4000万美国人请假，但还有270万想要请假，却承受不起请假带来的损失。要不了多久这种情况就会改变。目前至少有25个州正在探索提供带薪休假的新途径，以回应选民日益增加的要求。一种可能就是利用州伤病基金。一些州---纽约州，新泽西，加利福尼亚，罗德岛和夏威夷---已经动用伤病基金为请孕产假的妇女提供部分工资。但这种举措并不能帮助那些做父亲的人和照料年迈父母的人。新泽西州和纽约州也许不久就会扩大伤病基金计划的覆盖面，让那些请假照料孩子的父亲们和其他照料伤病亲属的人都能从中受益。包括亚利桑那州，伊利诺伊州和佛罗里达州在内的十三个州已经提议动用失业基金来支付请假工资。
   Massachusetts has been especially creative. When the state's acting governor, Jane Swift, gave birth to twin daughters in May, she drew attention to the issue with her own "working maternity leave": she telecommuted part-time but earned her usual full-time salary. Even before Swift returned to work last week, the state Senate unanimously passed a pilot plan that would use surplus funds from a health-insurance program for the unemployed to give new parents 12 weeks off at half pay. Another plan, proposed in the House, would require employers to kick in $20 per worker to set up a "New Families Trust Fund." Businesses would get tax credits in return. This week Swift is expected to announce her own paid-leave plan for lower-income mothers and fathers. Polls show widespread public support--another reason Swift and other politicians across the country have embraced the issue.
    马萨诸塞州的举措尤具创意。当该州的代理州长，简•斯威夫特五月生下一对双胞胎女儿的时候，她以自己“请产假”的方式引起人们对这一问题的关注。她在家通过电脑终端远程工作，做的是兼职工作，拿的却是全职的薪水。在她上周重返工作岗位之前，州参议院就一致通过了一项试点方案，允许动用失业人员医疗保险计划的剩余基金，让刚生了孩子的父母可以拿一半工资，请假12周。众议院提议的另外一项计划则要求雇主为每个员工增加20美元工资，以便设立一个“新家庭信托基金”。作为回报，商业企业可以获得税金免除。这一周，预计斯威夫特将宣布她本人针对低收入母亲和父亲提出的带薪请假计划。民意测验显示了广泛的公众支持---这是斯威夫特和其他国内政治家乐意解决这一问题的另外一个原因。
   Still, not everyone's wild about the idea. People without children question why new parents--the first group to get paid leave under many of the proposed plans--should get more government perks than they do. Business groups are resistant to proposals that would raid unemployment funds; several have already filed suit to block them. As the economy slows, many companies say they can't afford to contribute to proposed new benefit funds either. Business lobbyists say too many employees already abuse existing federal family-leave laws by taking time off for dubious reasons or in tiny time increments. The proposed laws, they say, would only make matters worse.
    不过，并不是所有人都热衷这种想法。一些没有子女的人质疑为什么刚生了孩子的父母---他们是许多提案当中第一批获得带薪请假待遇的人---得到的政府补贴比他们的多。商业机构抵制动用失业基金的提案；一些机构甚至已经提起诉讼以阻止这些提案获得通过。随着经济发展的减速，许多公司也说他们无力为提议中的福利基金提供资金。商业企业的院外游说成员说有太多的员工已经滥用现有的联邦家庭医疗休假法，以许多可疑的借口请假，或者拖延一点请假时间。他们认为该法律提案只会使情况变得更糟。
    For Garro and Duplisea, though, the new laws could make all the difference. As Melina fixes a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, Duplisea hugs a snoozing Andres against his T shirt. "We're trying to do the right thing by two kids, and we have to sacrifice," Duplisea says. In Massachusetts and plenty of other states, help may be on the way.
    不过，对于加罗和杜普里希来说，新的法律会使他们的境况大为不同。梅丽娜准备一块花生-黄油-果冻三明治的时候，杜普里希把怀中打盹的安德烈抱在胸前。“我们正在努力为两个孩子创造好的条件，所以不得不做出牺牲，”杜普里希说。在马塞诸塞州和其他许多州，也许很快人们就会得到这样的帮助。

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举报只看该作者 8楼发表于: 2014-03-09 0

考研时文阅读（9）英语的消亡
The Death of English 英语的消亡

                                （Newsweek <<新闻周刊>>,August, 2, 2008）
    导读：怪异的短信语言是对语言的亵渎还是创新？是年轻一代人堕落的标志吗？语言学家得出了与中学教师和语言保守主义者不同的结论。
    In an experiment, the more adept children were at text messaging, the better they did in spelling and writing. 一次实验表明，手机短信发得越是熟练的孩子，单词拼写和写作能力就越强。
  The most hotly contested controversy sparked by the text-messaging phenomenon of the past eight years is over truant letters. “Textese（Text（手机短信）+ ese（用语））组成”, a newly born dialect of English that subverts letters and numbers to produce ultra-concise words and sentiments, is horrifying language loyalists and pedagogues. And their fears are stoked by some staggering numbers: this year the world is on track to produce 2.3 trillion messages---a nearly 20 percent increase from 2007 and almost 150 percent from 2000. The accompanying revenue for telephone companies is growing nearly as fast---to an estimated $ 60 billion this year. In the English-speaking world, Britain alone generates well over 6 billion messages every month. People are communicating more and faster than ever, but some worry that, as textese drops consonants, vowels and punctuation and makes no distinction between letters and numbers, people will no longer know how we were really supposed to communicate. Will text messaging produce generations of illiterates? Could this---OMG(Oh my God)---be the death of English language?
   在最近8年中，由手机短信现象引起的最激烈的争论是关于不规范用语。“短信语言”作为一种新兴的表达方式，颠覆了字母和数字，创造出极其简洁的词汇和情绪表达方式，令语言的尽忠信守者和学究们惶恐不已。而一些大得惊人的数字又加剧了他们的惶恐：今年全世界发送的短信数量将达到2.3万亿条，比2007年增加了将近20%，比2000年增加了近150%。随之而来的电话公司的收入也以近乎同样的速度增长---今年预计达到600亿美元。在说英语的国家中，仅英国每月发送的短信就大大超过60亿条。尽管人们之间的交流更多更快了，但有人担心，随着短信语言省略了辅音、元音和标点，对字母和数字不加区别的使用，人们会忘记正常的交流方式。发短信会造就几代文盲吗？上帝啊（短信用语：OMG）--英语会就此消亡吗？
   Those raising the alarm aren’t linguist. They are teachers who have had to red-pen some ridiculous practices in high-school papers and concerned citizens who believe it their moral duty to write grammar books. The latter can be quite prominent, like “John Humphrys”, a television broadcaster and household name in Britain, for whom texting is “vandalism” and Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, who actually enjoys texting so much she never abbreviates. Britain, one of the first countries where texting became a national habit, has also produced some of the most bitter anti-texting vitriol, “textese” wrote John Sutherland in The Guardian,  masks dyslexia. But linguists, if anyone is paying attention, have kept quiet on this score---until now. In a new book, Britain’s most prolific linguist finally sets a few things straight.
   提出警告的并非语言学家。他们中有不得不批改中学学生试卷中一些荒唐用法的老师，也有认为自己有道德义务编写语法书的忧虑的公民。后者包括相当知名的人物，如英国家喻户晓的电视主播约翰汉氟莱斯，他认为短信是“对文化的恶意破坏行为”。还有《吃、射、走》一书的作者林恩特拉斯，她实际上非常喜欢发短信因而从不使用缩写。英国是首批发短信已成国民习惯的国家之一，但这里也产生了针对短信行为的最激烈尖刻的批评。约翰萨瑟兰在《卫报》上写到：“发短信是针对诵读困难的掩饰。” 但语言学家（如果当中有谁关注此事的话）却至今对此保持沉默。英国最高产的语言学家最终在一本新著中澄清了几件事。
   David Crystal’s “Txtng: the Gr 8 Db8 ”(Oxford ) makes two general points: that the language of texting is hardly as deviant as people think, and that texting actually makes young people better communicators, not worse. Crystal spells out the first point by marshalling real linguistic evidence. He breaks down the distinctive elements of texting language---pictograms, initialisms, or acronyms; contractions and others---and points out similar examples in linguistic practice from the ancient Egyptians to 20th century broadcasting. Shakespeare freely used elisions, novel syntax and several thousand made-up words (his own name was signed in six different ways). Even some common conventions are relatively novel: rules for using the oft-abused apostrophe were set only in the middle of the 19th century. The point is that tailored text predates the text message, so we might as well accept that ours is a language of vandals. Who even knows what p.m. stands for? (“Post meridiem, Latin for “after midday,” first recorded by a lazy delinquent in 1666. )
    戴维克里斯特尔所著的《发短信：大讨论》（牛津大学出版社出版）中提出了两大论点：一是短信语言并不像人们想的那样离经叛道，二是发短信实际上使年轻人交流得更好，而不是更差。克里斯特尔通过收集现实中语言例证清楚地阐述了第一点。他分析了短信语言的特殊要素----象形文字，词首字母缩略或缩拼词，缩略词等。他还列举自古埃及文字到20世纪广播中都存在的类似语言应用的例证。莎士比亚随意使用的省音、新奇句法和数千个自造词（他的名字便有6种不同的签法）。即使是一些常见用法也是相对新奇的：常被滥用的省字号撇号的用法规则直到19世纪中叶才定型。重要的是规范过的语言先于短信的出现，所以我们也可以认为我们的语言是恣意破坏文化者的语言。谁知道p.m.代表什么呢？（Post meridiem，拉丁语“中午之后”，1666年由一位懒散的失职者首次记录。）
   Where the opponents see destruction, Crystal sees growth. He believes in the same theory of evolution for language as some evolutionary biologists do for life: change isn’t gradual. Monumental developments interrupt periods of stagnation, always as a result of crucial external developments. The American Revolution had much greater consequences for the English language than texting has had thus far. The resulting differences between American and British English, Crystal says, are more pronounced than the differences between, say, the language of newspapers and text messages. (Interestingly, there are hardly any differences between American and Britain texting.)
    反对者看到毁灭的地方，克里斯特尔则看到成长。如同一些生物学家相信生物进化论那样，他相信语言同样展现着进化论：变化不是渐进的。非常的变化会打破停滞期，其原因总在于重要的外部变化。美国独立战争对英语的影响远远大于发短信迄今为止对英语的影响。克里斯特尔说，结果美国英语和英国英语的差别比报纸语言与短信语言之间的差别还要显著。（有趣的是，美国和英国的短信之间差别几乎没有。）
   As soon as linguists began to peer into the uproar over texting, researchers examined the effects of texting experimentally. The results disproved conventional wisdom: in one British experiment last year, children who texted---and who wielded plenty of abbreviations---scored higher on reading and vocabulary tests. In fact, the more adept they were at abbreviating, the better they did in spelling and writing. Far from being a means to getting around literacy, texting seems to give literacy a boost. The effect is similar to what happens when parents chat away to infants or read to toddlers: the more exposure children get to language, by whatever means, the more verbally skilled they become. “Before you can write abbreviated forms effectively and play with them, you need to have a sense of how the sounds of your language relate to the letters,” says Crystal. The same study also found the children with the highest scores to be the first to have gotten their own cell phones.
    语言学家刚一开始关注关于短信的争议，研究人员就通过实验来检验发短信的影响。实验结果与传统看法相悖：去年在英国举行的一项实验表明，写短信和大量使用缩写的儿童在阅读和词汇考试中成绩更好。实际上，他们使用缩写越熟练，就越擅长拼写和写作。写短信远非避开识字的途径，反而是为识字增添助力。其效果类似家长对婴儿叨叨咕咕，或者给刚会走路的孩子读故事：无论以何种方式，孩子接触语言越多，语言能力就越强。克里斯特尔说：“在有效使用缩写词并巧妙对此加以运用之前，你必须了解语言的声音与字母之间的关系。”这项研究还发现得分最高的孩子最先拥有他们自己的手机。
   Which doesn’t let the teenager who LOLS in a term paper off the hook---but that’s not so much a question of language ability as of judgment. It, too, should go the way of all slang ever inappropriately used in a classroom---rebuked with a red pen, not seized upon as a symptom of generational decline. Even if electronic communication engenders its own kind of carelessness, it’s no worse than the carelessness of academic jargon or journalistic shorthand. It certainly doesn’t engender stupidity. One look at the winners of text-poetry contests in Britain proves that the force behind texting is a tendency for innovation, not linguistic laziness. Electronic communication, Crystal says, “has introduced that kind of creative spirit into spelling once again.” That heathen Shakespeare would have been onboard.
    让十几岁的年轻人的学期论文不能轻松通过的原因与其说是语言能力问题，不如说是判断问题。它也应该像在课堂上使用不当的俚语一样，以红笔判错，但并不作为一代人堕落的表现。即使电子通讯产生一种特有的随意，但并不比学术术语或新闻用语的简略表达法所产生的随意更糟糕。它肯定不会造成愚蠢。只要看看英国短信诗歌比赛的获胜者就会明白，写短信的驱动力是创新的追求，而不是语言的惰性。克里斯特尔称，电子通讯“已经将创新精神再次引入到单词拼写中来”。如果离经叛道的莎士比亚再世，他也会热衷于短信语言。

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等级: 内阁元老

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举报只看该作者 9楼发表于: 2014-03-09 0

考研时文阅读(10)
Experts on reading wonder: is the Internet friend or foe?
                阅读专家不解：互联网究竟是朋友还是敌人？
  Books are not Nadia Konyk’s thing. Her mother, hoping to entice her, brings them home from the library, but Nadia rarely shows interest. Instead, like so many other teenagers, Nadia, 15, is addicted to the Internet. She regularly spends at least six hours a day in front of the computer in this suburb southwest of Cleveland.
  纳迪娅•科尼克不喜欢读书。她的妈妈为引发她的兴趣，从图书馆借了一些书回家，但纳迪娅基本不感兴趣。相反，和众多青年一样，15岁的纳迪娅迷上了互联网。她通常每天都要在位于克利夫兰西南郊家中的电脑前花去至少6个小时。
  Nadia checks her e-mail and peruses myyearbook. com, a social networking site, reading messages or posting updates on her mood. She searches for music videos on YouTube and logs onto Gaia Online, a role-playing site where members fashion alternate identities as cutesy cartoon characters. But she spends most of her time on quizilla.com or fanfiction.net, reading and commenting on stories written by other users and based on books, television shows or movies.
  Her mother, Deborah Konyk, would prefer that Nidia, who gets A’s and B’s at school, read books for a change. But at this point, Konyk said, “I’m just pleased that she reads something anymore.”
  纳迪娅查收电子邮件并浏览社交网站myyearbook. Com，在网站上阅读留言或是发帖表达自己最近的心情。她在YouTube网站上搜索音乐视频并登录角色扮演网站---盖亚在线Gaia Online,，会员可以在这个网站上自行定制“做可爱状的”卡通人物作为个人形象。但是她大部分时间都泡在quizilla.com网站或 fanfiction.net网站上，阅读或评论别人改编自书籍、电视节目或电影的故事。
  她的母亲德博拉•科尼克更愿意让学习成绩优良的纳迪娅换个口味，多读点书。但科尼克这会儿却说：“我高兴的是，她还是在读东西。”
  Children like Nadia lie at the heart of a passionate debate about just what it means to read in the digital age. The discussion is playing out among education policymakers and reading experts around the world, and within groups like the National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association.
  As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading---diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.
   人们正围绕纳迪娅这样的孩子展开一场激烈的争论，探讨阅读在数字时代究竟意味着什么。全球的教育决策者和阅读专家之间以及全国英语教师委员会和国际阅读协会等组织内部已经为此争论得不可开交。
由于青少年在标准化阅读测试中的得分降低或停滞不前，一些人便说耗费时间浏览互联网是阅读的大敌---因为这种做法弱化了读写能力，使注意力难以持续，并破坏了一种只有通过阅读书籍才能存在的宝贵的大众文化。
  But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society shouldn’t discount. The Web inspires a teenager like Nadia, who might otherwise spend most of her leisure time watching TV, to read and write.
  At least since the invention of TV, critics have warned that electronic media would destroy reading. What is different now, some literacy experts say, is that spending time on the Web, whether it is looking up something on Google or even britneyspears.org., entails some engagement with text.
   但其它人说，互联网创造了一种新的阅读方式，一种学校和社会都不应该低估的方式。网络激发像纳迪娅这样的青少年阅读和写作，不然他们就会利用大部分空闲时间看电视。
至少是从发明电视以来，批评人士就警告说，电子媒体会毁了阅读。一些读写专家说，现在不同的是，不管是用谷歌搜索，抑或甚至是浏览britneyspears.org.网站（美国歌手布兰尼•斯皮尔斯的歌迷网站），上网都多多少少需要和文字打交道。
  Few who believe in the potential of the Web deny the value of books. But they argue that it is unrealistic to expect all children to read “To Kill a Mockingbird” or “Pride and Prejudice” for fun. And those who prefer staring at TV or pushing buttons on a game console, they say, can still benefit from reading on the Internet. In fact, some literacy experts say that online reading skills will help children fare better when they begin looking for digital-age jobs.
  Some Web evangelists say children should be evaluated for their proficiency on the Internet just as they are tested on their print-reading comprehension. Starting next year, some countries will participate in new international assessments of digital literacy; but the United States, for now, will not.
   那些相信互联网潜力的人几乎都承认书籍的价值。但他们说，指望所有孩子为找快乐去读《杀死一只知更鸟》或《傲慢与偏见》是不切实际的。他们还说，那些更喜欢盯着电视机或打游戏的孩子仍然可以从网上阅读中获益。事实上，一些读写专家认为，网上阅读技巧将有助于孩子将来找数字时代的工作时更从容。
   一些网络的鼓吹者说，应当对孩子操作互联网的熟练程度进行打分，就像对他们的纸上阅读理解能力打分一样。从明年开始，一些国家将参与国际上关于数字时代读写能力的新评估，但是美国暂时不参加。
  Young people “aren’t as troubled as some of us older folks are by reading that doesn’t go in a line, ” said Rand Spiro, a professor of educational psychology at Michigan State University who is studying reading practices on the Internet. “That’s a good thing, because the world doesn’t go in a line, and the world isn’t organized into separate compartments or chapters.”
  Some traditionalists warn that digital reading is the intellectual equivalent of empty calories. Often, they argue, writers on the Internet employ a cryptic argot that vexes teachers and patents.
   密歇根州立大学教育心理学教授兰德斯皮罗说，年轻人“不像我们老一代人中的一些人那样被不以成行呈现的阅读方式所困扰”。他目前正在研究网上阅读习惯。“这是好事，因为世界并不是以成行方式存在的，而且世界并没有被分割成各个独立的单元或章节。”
   一些传统主义者警告说，数字阅读就是脑力活动中的空热量食物。他们说，通常情况下，网络写手会使用一种让老师和家长抓狂的晦涩难懂的网络语言。
  Zigzagging through a cornucopia of words, pictures, video and sound, they say, distracts more than strengthens readers. And many youths spend most of their time on the Internet playing games of sending messages, activities that involve minimal reading at best.
  Web proponents believe that strong readers on the Web may eventually surpass those who rely on books. Reading five Web sites, an op-ed article and a blog post or two, experts say, can be more enriching than reading one book.
  “It takes a long time to read a 400-page book, ” said Spiro. “In a tenth of the time, ” he said, the Internet allows a reader to “cover a lot more of the topic from different points of view.”
   这些传统主义者还说，这种穿插浏览大量文字、图片、影像和声音的阅读方式，与其说集中了读者的注意力，还不说分散了他们的注意力。许多年轻人上网主要是为了玩游戏或发信息，这些活动涉及的阅读行为少得不能再少了。
   对网络持支持态度的人认为，在网上大量阅读的人或许将最终胜过只看书本的人。专家说，浏览五个网站，一篇专栏文章和一两篇博文能比阅读一本书收获更大。
   斯皮罗说：“读一本400页的书需要很长时间。”他说，“花上1/10的时间”，读者就能在互联网上“从不同角度了解有关该话题的多得多的内容”。
  Web readers are persistently weak at judging whether information is trustworthy. In one study, Donald Leu, who researches literacy and technology at the University of Connecticut, asked 48 students to look at a spoof Web site, at http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/, about a mythical species known as the “Pacific Northwest tree octopus.” Nearly 90 percent of them missed the joke and deemed the site a reliable source.
  Some literacy experts say that reading itself should be redefined. Interpreting videos or pictures, they say, may be as important a skill as analyzing a novel or a poem.
  网络读者辨别信息真伪的能力一直很差。在康涅狄格大学研究读写能力和科技的唐纳德•列乌开展了一项研究。他让48名学生登录一个地址为http://zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/的恶作剧网页，该网页捏造了一种名为“西北太平洋树章鱼”的物种。学生中有近90%的人上当了，还认为这个网站是个可靠的信息来源。
  一些读写问题专家说，应当对阅读本身重新下定义。他们说，解读视频或图片或许是用解析一篇小说或一首诗歌一样重要的技能。
  “Kids are using sound and images so they have a world of ideas to put tohether that aren’t necessarily language-oriented, ”said Donna Alvermann, a professor of language and literacy education at the University of Georgia. “Books aren’t out of the picture, but they’re only one way of experiencing information in the world today.”
  The United States is diverging from the policies of an increasing number of countries. Next year, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which administers reading, math, and science tests to a sample of 15-year-old students in more than 50 countries, will add an electronic reading component. The United States says it will not participate because an additional test would overburden schools.
  佐治亚大学语言和读写教育教授唐娜•阿尔韦曼说：“孩子们正在使用声音和图象来汇总大量的想法，这些想法不一定需要通过语言表述出来。书还没有出局，但它们只是在当今世界获取信息的一种方式。”
  美国的政策正与越来越多的国家的政策分道扬镳。经济合作与发展组织（简称“经合组织”）定期对50多个国家的15岁学生进行阅读、数学和科学方面的抽样测评。美国称其不会参与，因为一门额外的考试将使学校负担过重。

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等级: 内阁元老

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举报只看该作者 10楼发表于: 2014-03-09 0

时文阅读（11）
Gifted Children: how to bring out their potential
                        如何发挥天才儿童的潜力
   Contrary to what many people believe, highly intelligent children are not necessarily destined for academic success. In fact, so-called gifted students may fail to do well because they are usually smart. Ensuring that a gifted child reaches his or her potential requires an understanding of what can go wrong and how to satisfay the unusual learning requirements of extrememly bright young people.
    与许多人的看法背道而驰，极为聪明的儿童并非注定在学业上取得成功。事实上，所谓的天才生可能因为他们超乎寻常的聪明未能做到学业有成。确保一名有天赋的孩子发挥他或她的潜力，需要懂得可能会出什么差错和如何满足极端聪明青少年非同寻常的学习要求。
   One common problem gifted kids face is that they, and those around them, place too much importance on being smart. Such an emphasis can breed a belief that bright people do not have to work hard to do well. Although smart kids may not need to work hard in the lower grades, when the work is easy, they may struggle and perform poorly when the work get harder because they do not make the effort to learn. In some cases, they may not know how to study, having never done it before. In others, they simply can’t accept the fact that some tasks require effort.
    天才孩子普遍面临的一个问题是，他们及其周围的人，过分强调人得聪明。如果侧重会滋生聪明的人无须努力工作就能得心应手的理念。尽管聪明孩子在低年级时因为功课容易，不必努力学习，但当课程难度加大时，因为没有付出努力学习，他们可能学习吃力并表现不佳，有些情形是由于以前从未认真学习过，他们可能不知道该如何学习。其它情形则是他们根本不能接受有些任务需要付出努力这一事实。
   If the scholastic achievement of highly intelligent children remains below average for an extended period, many teachers will fail to recognize their potential. As a result, such students may not get the encouragement they need, further depressing their desire to learn. They may fall far behind in their schoolwork and even develop behavior problems. Boys may turn aggressive or become class clowns. Girls often develop performance anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms such as stomachaches.
    如果才智高的儿童的学习成绩在持续时间内始终低于平均水平，许多教师会不认可他们的潜力。如果这样的学生可能得不到他们所需的鼓励，从而进一步削弱他们的学习欲望。这些学生可能在学业上远远落后，甚至发展成行为问题。男孩可能变得暴躁好斗或成为班上的小玩闹。女孩通常表现得焦虑并出现如胃痛那样的身心失调症状。
   One way to avoid such difficulties is to recognize that IQ is just one ingredient among many in the recipt for success. Children thrive or struggle in school for a host of reasons apart from IQ, according to psychologist Franz Monks of the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands. These include motivation and persistence, social competence, and the support of family, educators and friends. Emphasizing the importance of persistence and hard work, for example, will help a child avoid the laziness trap. Gifted children also need intellectual challenges---to teach them how to work hard.
    避免此类问题的一个方法是承认智商只是众多促成成功的要素之一。据荷兰奈梅亨大学心理学家Franz Monks所说，除了智商，儿童在学习上“天天向上”或吃力坚持有诸多原因。这些原因包括兴趣和毅力、社交能力以及家庭、教育者和朋友们的支持。比如，强调持之以恒和勤奋努力的重要性将帮助孩子避免落入懒惰的陷阱。有天赋的孩子同样需要智力上的挑战---教会他们如何努力学习。
                   Acceleration or Enrichment?  跳级还是丰富所学？
   Highly gifted children solve the most varied thought problems faster and more thoroughly than those with more average aptitudes do. Because these children speed through the regular curriculum for their grade, they need additional intellectual stimulation while they wait for the rest of the kids to learn the basics. Two central approaches are used to satisfy the educational needs of such children: acceleration and enrichment. Acceleration means studying material that is part of the standard curriculum for older students. Enrichment involves learning information that falls outside the usual curriculum---say, investigating a topic in greater depth or finding out about new topics.
    天赋极高的孩子比悟性一般的孩子更快、更彻底地解决极不同的推理问题。因为这些孩子快速掌握所在年级的常规课程，他们在等待其他同学学习基础知识之际，需要额外的智力刺激。两种主要途径用以满足此类孩子的教育需求：跳级和丰富教学。跳级意味学习高年级学生标准课程的部分内容。丰富所学包括学习常规课程之外的知识信息，比如更深度地探讨某个课题或探索新课题的内容。
   One way to accelerate children is through early schooling, a term that refers to expanding educational opportunities to children younger than five years. Such schooling may be very beneficial: one extraordinary talented little boy I met had learned to read fluently even before entering school.
    加速儿童学习的一种方法是早期学习教育，这一术语是指将教育机会扩展到5岁以下的儿童。这种学校教育可能非常有益：我遇到一个天资极高的小男孩在入学前就已经学会熟练自如地阅读。
   A child might also skip one or more grades as a way of accelerating in school. But being with older children for the entire school day---and perhaps for grade-based extracurricular activities such as sports—can make a child feel inferior in every realm outside of academics. One very bright fourth-grader who had skipped two grades remained far ahead of his classamates intellectually, but as his classmates reached puberty, his social and other shortcomings became painfully apparent. To compensate, he began to brag about how smart he was, and his classmates responded by calling him “crazy ” and “show-off” and by totally excluding him from their social life.
    这类小孩还可以跳一级或更多年级以加快学校学习的进程。但整天的学校生活都是与年龄大的同学相处，参与或许是以年级为主的课外活动，如体育运动，会使他们觉得在学业外的各项活动中均不如人。一名跳了两个年级的很聪明的四年级学童在智力上远远地超过他的同班同学，但当他的同学们到达青春期时，他的社交能力和其它不足变得恼人地突出。为了弥补这些缺陷，他开始夸耀自己有多么的聪明，他同学则以“疯子”和“卖弄”来回应，并完全将其排斥在他们的社会生活之外。
   Because of such problems, most highly gifted children are better off if they largely remain in the grade with other children their age. Alternatively, mixed-age classes such as those found at Montessori schools prevent precocious students from leaving their regular class completely and yet may enable some acceleration for younger students. In some cases, gifted kids might be given the opportunity to, say, take an accelerated class in a subject that interests them while remaining in their regular classroom for ther subjects.
    由于有这些问题，极具天赋的儿童如果主要与其他同龄学童待在同一个年级，处境会更好。要不，就像在Montessori学校发现的混龄班级那样，不让早熟的学生完全脱离常规班级，然而却可以使年龄小的学生获得加速学习的机会。在某种情形下，有天赋的孩子可能会有这样的机会，比如，留在其常规班上学习其它课程的同时参加他们感兴趣的某个科目的提高班。
   When accelaration is not an option, or not a good one, enrichment can be. After all, school is not a race but an adventure in learning. As such, school is not finishing first but absorbing as much knowledge as possible in the time allotted. Thus, providing opportunities for a child to study topics outside the regular curriculum can be at least as valuable as pushing him or her through the required material faster. Gifted kids might get the stimulation they require by, say, joining a chess club, a math or debate team, or another enrichment activity that engages their intellect. Another common technique is to enable a child to embark on an independent project or experiement under the guidance of a mentor.
    当跳级不是一项选择，或不是一项好的选择时，丰富所学是可行的。上学毕竟不是一项竞赛，而是一种学习上的探索。正因如此，目标并非首先冲过终点，而是在指定时间里尽可能多地吸取知识。因而给孩子提供常规课程以外学习课题的机会至少与使他或她更快通过必须课的学习同样重要。有天资的孩子如果参加一个国际象棋俱乐部，一支数学或辩论代表队，抑或其它使他们的才智有用武之地的丰富所学活动，可能获得他们所需要的学习动力。还有一种常规方法是在导师指导下让孩子着手进行一项独立的课题或试验。
   The independent project approach has met with success in varied educational settings. In the revolving door model developed by educational psychologists Joseph Renzulli and Sally Reis of the University of Connecticut, a broad swath of above-average elementary school students---those who score in the top 15 to 25 percent on standardized tests---leave their regular classrooms for several hours to work individually on projects of their own choosing.
    独立课题方法在不同的教育环境中已取得了成功。在Connecticut 大学教育心理学家Joseph Renzulli 和Sally Reis发展的“旋转门”模式中，一大批学生成绩超过平均水平的小学生---即在标准化测试中得分位居前15%到25%的学童---离开平日上课的教室几个小时，独立进行各自选择的课题研究。
    In 2003 my colleagues at the University of Munster and I founded the Forder—Forder (challenge---encourage) program, in which kids in grades two through seven spend two hours per week outside their regular classroom studying a subject that interests them. So far 346 kids have completed the program, which usually culminates in a presentation to a teacher and classmates. One second-grade participant produced a documentary about Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen---the physicist who discovered x-ray radiation---that was later shown at the Rontgen Museum in Remscheid, Germany. Other children have put together presentations on bionics, black holes, female pirates, and the life of Queen Luise of Prussia. Gifted kids typically choose to learn about complex topics that are too advanced for most kids their age.
    2003年，我和我的Munster大学的同事创建了“挑战---激励”项目----二年级至七年级的学童每周花2个小时在平日上课的教室外学习他们感兴趣的课程。迄今已有346名学童完成了项目，该项目通常以向教师和同学描述内容告结。一名二年级参与者撰写了一篇关于X射线辐射的物理学家Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen的文章。后来这篇文章被展示在德国Rontgen Museum in Remscheid。其它孩子还组织出关于仿生学、黑洞、女海盗和普鲁士女王路易丝生平的内容展示。有天赋的孩子通常选择对大多数同龄人而言过于超前的难懂课题。
   The programs and suggestions described here demonstrate that what highly gifted students need most are good mentors to serve as guides as they navigate complex subject matter. This specialized learning process benefits not only the gifted children but others as well: when the participating students share the fruits of their labors, the rest of their class also reaps the reward of learning something new.
    本文所叙述的计划和建议显示极具天赋的学生最需要的是，当他们探究难解的课题时，有好的导师给予指导。这种专门的学习过程不仅使有天赋的儿童受益也惠及其它学生：参与者把他们的劳动果实拿出来分享时，班上的其它学生也获得了学习新知的回报。

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举报只看该作者 11楼发表于: 2014-03-10 0

考研时文阅读（12）
Text 11 Why texting harms your IQ
                      为什么收发短信会降低智商？
  The regular use of text messages and e-mails can lower the IQ more than twice as much as smoking marijuana. That is the claim of psychologists who have found that tapping away on a mobile phone or computer keypad or checking them for electronic messages temporarily knocks up to ten points off the user's IQ. This rate of decline in intelligence compares unfavorably with the four-point drop in IQ associated with smoking marijuana, according to British researchers, who have labeled the fleeting phenomenon of enhanced stupidity as infomania.
    经常收发短信和e-mail会降低人的智商。这种损害比吸食大麻对智商带来的损害要高两倍多。心理学家发现，使用手机或敲击电脑键盘发送或接收电子信息会暂时降低使用者约十个百分点的智商。根据英国研究人员的研究，吸食大麻会使智商下降个百分点，而与之相比，经常使用电子文本信息造成的智力衰减率更加严重。研究人员将这种暂时变笨的现象称为“信息狂躁”。
  Research on sleep deprivation suggests that the IQ drop caused by electronic obsession is also equivalent to a wakeful night. Infomania is mainly a problem for adult workers, especially men, as the study commissioned by Hewlett Packard, the technology company, has concluded.
  The noticeable drop in IQ is attributed to the constant distraction of always on technology when employees should be concentrating on what they are paid to do. Infomania means that they lose concentration as their minds remain fixed in an almost permanent state of readiness to react to technology instead of focusing on the task in hand. Workers lose productivity by interrupting a business meeting and disrupt social gatherings because of their infirmity, the report said.
    关于剥夺睡眠的研究表明因为痴迷于电子产品而造成的智力衰退相当于一夜失眠。惠普科技公司委托进行的研究结果表明，信息狂躁主要表现在成年人身上，尤其是成年男性。
    造成这种智力明显衰退的原因在于当员工们应该集中精力工作时，“无处不在”的科技却总是不断分散他们的注意力。信息狂躁是指他们的意识近乎一直处于一种随时对“技术”做出反应的状态，因而无法将注意力集中在手头的工作上。报告中说，因为工人们的虚弱，通过中断了业务会议而失去生产效率，并且破坏了社交聚会的范围。
  The brain also finds it hard to cope with juggling lots of tasks at once, reducing its overall effectiveness, it added. And while modern technology can have huge benefits, excessive use can be damaging not only to a person's mind, but to their social life.
  Furthermore, infomania is having a negative effect on work colleagues, increasing stress and dissenting feelings. Nine out of ten polled thought that colleagues who answered e-mails or messages during a face-to-face meeting were extremely rude. Yet one in three Britons believes that it is not only acceptable, but actually diligent and efficient to do so.
  The effects on IQ were studied by Dr Glenn Wilson, a University of London psychologist, as part of the research project. This is a very real and widespread phenomenon, he said. We have found that infomania, if unchecked, will damage a worker's performance by reducing their mental sharpness. Companies should encourage a more balanced and appropriate way of working.
   该报告还补充说大脑很难同时应付许多难题，其整体效率会降低。此外，虽然现代科技可以给予我们巨大的帮助，但过多地使用科技也会给人们的大脑和社会生活带来危害。
　　此外，信息狂躁对同事也有负面影响，增加他们的压力和敌对情绪。90％的被调查者认为在面对面会议时回电子邮件是非常无礼的行为。但是三分之一的英国人不仅可以接受这种行为，而且觉得这样做说明自己工作勤奋、高效。
　　伦敦大学的心理学家Glenn Wilson博士正在做一个名为“这是一个真实的普遍现象”的研究项目，信息狂躁对智商的影响是其中的一个部分。他说：“如果不进行检查控制，信息狂躁将会降低员工的精神敏感度，进而影响其工作效率。所以，公司应提倡一种更加平衡的适当的工作方式。”
核心单词记忆：
1. text v. 发送短信（文字讯息）[新词义]
2. tap on vt. 在……上轻敲，轻拍
3. knock up v.（使）筋疲力尽，（使）累垮
4. label vt. 贴标签于，指……为，分类，标注
5. deprivation n. 剥夺动词为 deprive vt. 剥夺，使丧失
6. be equivalent to 相等(当) 于……，等（同）于，与……等效
7. commission vt. 委任，任命，委托，委托制作；n. 委任，委托，代办（权），代理（权），犯
  （罪），佣金
8. attribute to v. 归因于
9. cope with v. 与……竞争，应付
10. while conj. 虽然，尽管例句：While the grandparents love the children， they are strict
    with them. 虽然祖父母们都爱他们的孩子，但却对他们要求严格。
11. dissenting adj.（=dissentient）不同意的
12. poll v. 投票，获得选票，选举中获得
13. face-to-face adv. 面对面地
14. unchecked adj. 未受制止的，未经检查的，未加抑制的
15. appropriate adj. 适当的

                       Text 2  使用不健康网络可能有损心理健康
   Internet use appears to cause a decline in psychological well-being, according to research at Carnegie Mellon University. Even people who spent just a few hours a week on the Internet experienced more depression and loneliness than those who logged on less frequently, the two-year study showed. And it wasn't that people who were already feeling bad spent more time on the Internet, but that using the Net actually appeared to cause the bad feelings.
    卡内基麦伦大学的研究表明，使用因特网可能会导致心理健康程度下降。两年的研究表明，上网次数多的人与较少的人相比，即使是一周仅上网几小时也会经常地感觉到沮丧和孤独。这不是说已经有不良感觉的人在网上花费了更多的时间，而是说使用因特网似乎确实诱发了人们的不良感觉。
   Researchers are puzzling over the results, which were completely contrary to their expectations. They expected that the Net would prove socially healthier than television, since the Net allows users to choose their information and to communicate with others.
    研究人员对这些结果困惑不解，因为这与他们的预料截然相反。他们预测，和看电视相比，从社交角度来说，上网可能更健康一些，因为网络允许使用者选择自己需要的信息并且和别人进行交流。
   The fact that Internet use reduces time available for family and friends may account for the drop in well-being, researchers hypothesized. Faceless, bodiless virtual communication may be less psychologically satisfying than actual conversation, and the relationships formed through it may be shallower. Another possibility is that exposure to the wider world via the Net makes users less satisfied with their lives.
    研究者推测说，实际情况是上网使网民减少了和家人及朋友共度的时光，这也许可以解释他们心理健康状况下降的原因。和面对面的交谈相比，这种见不着面、看不见人的“虚拟”的交流可能会使人从心理上缺乏满足感。人们通过这种交流结下的友谊也不会太深。还有一种可能是，网民通过因特网所了解到的广阔世界使他们对自己的生活不那么满意了。
   But it's important to remember this is not about the technology; it's about how it is used, says psychologist Christine Riley of Intel, one of the study's sponsors. It really points to the need for considering social factors in terms of how you design applications and services for technology.
   “然而，重要的是不要忘记这与技术本身是无关的，问题在于如何使用因特网。”这项研究的发起人之一、心理学家、英特尔公司的克里斯廷•赖利说，“这的确表明在考虑从技术上如何设计应用和服务时有必要把社会因素考虑进去。
核心单词记忆：
1. available 可利用的，可支配的；  例句The swimming pool is available only in summer.  这个游
   泳池只在夏天开放。
2. contrary to 与……相反  例句：What you are doing now is contrary to the doctor's advice.
3. hypothesize 假设，假定；
4. virtual [电脑]虚拟的，虚的；对于这个词可以结合上下文理解. Faceless, bodiless virtual
  communication may be less psychologically satisfying than actual conversation, and the
  relationships formed through it may be shallower.   文中virtual communication对应着后面的
  actual conversation，又有than，可以想到这是两个对应的反义词。
5. actual 现实的；
6. exposure to 暴露，（文中引申为了解）  例句：The paint came off as the result of exposure
   to the rain.油漆因受雨淋而剥落。
7. sponsor 发起者，主办者，赞助者

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举报只看该作者 12楼发表于: 2014-03-10 0

考研时文阅读（13）
Is GE food Safe to Eat?
   转基因食物食用是否安全?
Traditional plant breeding involves crossing varieties of the same species in ways they could cross naturally. For example, disease－resistant varieties of wheat have been crossed with high－yield wheat to combine these properties. This type of natural gene exchange is safe and fairly predictable.
传统的植物培育方法，是用植物自然杂交的方式，来进行相同物种的人工杂交。比如，抗病小麦同高产小麦杂交，形成了一种具有双重特性的新的小麦品种。这种自然的基因交换既安全，又具有相当的可预见性。
Genetic engineering（GE）involves exchanging genes between unrelated species that cannot naturally exchange genes with each other. GE can involve the exchange of genes between vastly different species, e.g. putting scorpion toxin genes into maize or fish antifreeze genes into tomatoes. It is possible that a scorpion toxin gene, even when it is in maize DNA, will still get the organism to produce scorpion toxin, but what other effects may it have in this alien environment? We are already seeing this problem——adding human growth hormone genes to pigs certainly makes them grow——but it also gives them arthritis and makes them cross－eyed, which was entirely unpredictable.
基因工程是在彼此毫无关系的物种之间，相互交换在自然条件下无法交换的基因。它可在有巨大差异的物种之间进行基因交换。比如，将蝎子毒素基因注入玉米，或者将鱼防冻基因注入西红柿。即使在玉米DNA中，蝎子毒素基因依然可能获得有机组织产生蝎子毒素。但是在这种异质的环境中，这种基因产品会有什么其他作用吗？我们实际上已经发现这个问题：将人类生长荷尔蒙基因植入猪的体内，一定会使猪的生长加速，但是同时也使猪患上了关节炎和内斜视，而这一切是完全无法预测的。
It will be obvious, for example, that the gene for human intelligence will not have the same effect if inserted into cabbage DNA as it had in human DNA——but what side－effect would it have? In other words, is GE food safe to eat? The answer is that nobody knows because long－term tests have not been carried out.
比如，人类的智力基因显而易见在人体DNA内和注入卷心菜DNA后的作用是不同的。但将它植入卷心菜中会产生什么样的副作用呢？换句话说，食用转基因食品安全吗？没有人知道答案，因为人们尚未进行长期的测试。
　　Companies wanting a GE product approved in the UK or USA are required to provide regulatory bodies with results of their own safety tests. Monsanto''s soya beans were apparently fed to fish for 10 weeks before being approved. There was no requirement for independent testing, for long-term testing, for testing on humans or testing for specific dangers to children or allergic people.
　　The current position of the UK Government is that there is no evidence of long-term dangers from GE foods. In the US, the American Food and Drug Administration is currently being prosecuted for covering up research that suggested possible risks from GE foods.
在英国或者美国，一个公司如果希望其转基因产品获得批准，它必须向管理机构提供本公司转基因产品安全测试的结果。Monsanto的大豆在获得批准之前，曾用了10周时间进行喂鱼试验。目前，尚无要求对转基因产品进行独立测试、长期测试、人体测试，或者就其对儿童及过敏者所造成的特定危险进行测试。
英国政府目前的态度是：“尚无证据表明食用转基因食品存在长期性的危险。”在美国，人们正在起诉美国食品药品管理局掩盖转基因食品安全性的研究结果，这些研究结果表明，食用转基因食品可能导致危险。
核心单词：
1. breeding 生育，繁殖，培植
2. resistant 抵抗的、防……的
3. yield 出产，结出，被迫放弃例句：These apple trees yield plenty of fruit this year. 这些苹果树今年结了许多苹果。例句：He was forced to yield the castle. 他被迫放弃城堡。
4. property 特性，属性例句：He is studying the medicinal properties of wild plants.   他正在研究野生
  植物的药物特性。
5. scorpion 蝎子
6. toxin 毒素
7. alien 外国的，性质不相容的；例句：Her behavior is alien to our ethical values. 她的行为和我们的伦理标准格格不入。
8. side-effect 副作用
The 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 in 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 become increasingly great 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. In this now universal contamination of the environment, chemicals are the sinister partners of radiation in changing the very nature of the world as well as the very nature of its life. Chemicals sprayed on croplands or forests or gardens lie long in soil, entering into living organisms, passing from one to another in a chain of poisoning and death. Or they pass mysteriously by underground streams until they emerge and combine into new forms that kill vegetation, sicken cattle, and work unknown harm on those who drink from once pure wells. Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation, as a scientist has said.
It took hundreds of millions of years to produce the life that now inhabits the earth. Given time not in years but in millennia life adjusts, and a balance has been reached. But in the modern world there is no time.
  The rapidity of change follows the impetuous pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature. Radiation is now the unnatural creation of man's tampering with the atom. The chemicals are the synthetic creations of man's inventive mind, having no counterparts in nature.
To adjust to these chemicals would require not merely the years of a man's life but the life of generations. And even this, were it by some miracle possible, would be futile, for the new chemicals come from our laboratories in an endless stream; almost five hundred annually find their way into actual use in the United States alone. Among them are many that are used in man's war against nature. Since the mid 1940's over 200 basic chemicals have been created for use in killing insects, weeds, and other organisms described as pests.
译文：
地球上生命的历史一直就是一部生物与其环境相互作用的历史。在很大程度上，地球上动植物的形态以及习性都是由外部环境所塑造的。考虑到地球上生命存在的整个时间，相反作用，即生命对其周围环境的实际改变作用，却相对很小。只有在当前这个世纪（指20世纪）才有一个物种——人类，获得了强大的力量，改变了其所生存的世界的自然状态。
在过去的1/4世纪中，这种力量不仅日趋强大，而且其性质也发生了变化。在人类破坏环境的种种行为中，最令人担忧的是人类向大气、土壤、河流以及海洋中排放危险甚至致命物质，而当今这种污染在很大程度上是无法挽救的。在当今这种对环境的普遍污染中，化学制品与辐射狼狈为奸，改变着地球的自然状态，也就是改变着地球上生命的自然状态。喷洒到农田、森林或者花园里的化学物质长期滞留于土壤中，渗入有机体内，并彼此相传，形成了一个中毒与死亡的链条。化学物质还神秘地通过地下水传递，最终以新的形式出现并结合，使植物毒死，牲畜害病，并使饮用一度纯净的井水的人遭受了不明之害。正如一位科学家所言：“人类甚至对自己创造的恶魔都不认识。”
         地球历经了许多亿年才创造了栖息其上的生命。经过了一定时间——不是以若干年计而是以若干千年计的时间——生命开始适应环境，并形成了一种与环境的平衡。但是在现代世界中，时间这一因素已经没有了。
         环境改变的速度不再顺从大自然从容不迫的节奏，而是顺从人类急切匆匆的步伐。辐射是当今人类通过支配原子而得到的一种非自然的创造物。化学制品则是人类有发明创造力的头脑创造出来的合成物，在自然界本无相应的东西。
         为了适应这些化学制品，人类需要付出的时间不会只是一个人一生的时间，而是几代人的时间。而即使这样，就算出现奇迹成为可能，这种适应也是徒劳的，因为新的化学制品从我们的实验室中源源不断地涌出。仅在美国，每年就有大约500种化学制品投入使用，其中许多是用于人类对自然的战争中。从20世纪40年代中期起，人类已经创造了200多种基本化学制品用来消灭昆虫、野草以及其他所谓的“有害生物”。
重点词汇：
1. character（人的）品质，性格；（事物的）性质、特性；He has a changeable character.
   他性格多变。
2. assault 攻击，袭击 They made a strong assault on the town. 他们猛烈攻击这个镇子。
3. spray 浪花，水花，喷液 Did you bring along some insect spray？你带来杀虫剂了吗？
4. impetuous 性急的，鲁莽的 It was impetuous of her to do that. 她竟做那种事，真是鲁莽。
5. deliberate 不慌不忙的，从容的 He is deliberate in his speech. 他说话从容不迫。The rapidity of
  change follows the impetuous pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature. 可见由than相连，
必然是两个反义词。
6. futile 无益的，无效的，无希望的 His efforts to save the business were futile. 他挽救公司的努力
未能奏效。

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ZxID：11247485

等级: 内阁元老

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举报只看该作者 13楼发表于: 2014-03-10 0

考研时文阅读（14）
篇章结构分析
本文所讨论的中心主题是：由于电视业不断地在进行结构调整，结果造成了一种商业主义泛滥的文化氛围。作者在第一段指出英国媒体的一个阴暗面，并指出对电视业的行业标准与诚信逐渐沦丧的一个普遍存在的原因。接着，作者在第二、三段分析了这个问题的一些其它原因。作者在第四段用了一个转折词but,指出一个最为重要但却被公众所忽视并不理解的原因：节目制作被外包给独立的公司。最后作者分析了在电视业培养诚信和保证质量的最好方法。属于现象分析型文章。

The abundant commentary on British television’s faking crises, including Jeremy Pitman’s recent Mac Taggart Lecture, doesn’t show British’s media in the best light. The chorus of TV executives complaining that the core issue is a loss of “trust” is a poor substitute for probing analysis of the underlying reasons why television’s standards and integrity have been undermined.
有关英国电视媒体造假危机长篇累牍的评论----包括杰里米帕克斯曼最近所做的麦克塔格特纪念演说----暴露出英国媒体的一个阴暗面。电视业管理者们齐声抱怨的问题的关键是“责任”的丧失，但这一说法并不能取代对电视业的行业标准与诚信逐渐沦丧的根本原因所进行的深入分析。
In many accounts, the BBC’s current agonies are integrated with the pervasive apprehension afflicting the TV industry. This is not to excuse the BBC. But the wider problems have been worsening for a decade, and they affect the BBC because the corporation is inevitably influenced by the wider broadcasting ecology.
在很大程度上，BBC眼下的麻烦是与困扰电视业的普遍担忧相伴随的问题。这并不是要为BBC开脱。但更广泛的问题十年来一直在恶化，这些问题也影响到了BBC，因为在这样的媒体大环境之下，它也难以独善其身。
The causes of the problems are several. Hyper-competition from the early Nineties onwards has led to a culture of rampant commercialism from which the BBC is not exempt, as is shown by the promotion of ratings-chasing, sensationalist and populist programs. Crucial, too, are the changes to working conditions, in particular a catastrophic decline in training, the growth of short-term employment, the erosion of career structures, and prevalent ageism, which leads to experienced producers being kicked out at 50 or before.
问题的原因是多方面的。自上世纪90年代以来，过度竞争导致商业主义泛滥的文化氛围。BBC也未能幸免，这从它提倡追求收视率、轰动效应、媚俗的节目即可看出。同样重要的原因还包括工作状况的变化，尤其是职业培训严重滑坡、短期聘用增加、从业者结构恶化以及普遍存在的年龄歧视等，而年龄歧视导致许多有经验的制作人在50岁甚至不到50岁就被扫地出门。
But the most important cause is obscured in the present debate: the outsourcing of production to independent companies, the leading figures of which are international businesses, and which are particularly tempted to put profit over standards and quality. This is where the government comes in, as the prominent position of the independents is due to repeated restructurings of the industry, during which the old producer-broadcasters were collapsed and the independents were given more and more of the cake. Right now, spurred on by a disappointing license-fee settlement, the BBC is making further cuts to its already depleted production base and increasing independent programming. Why should this matter? Because with outsourcing, the lines of communication and responsibility are fragmented, making it difficult for broadcasters to oversee and enforce standards with disobedient commercial suppliers. This problem is rarely acknowledged and little understood in public debate.
然而最为重要的原因却在目前的争论中被掩盖了起来：节目制作被外包给独立的公司，这些公司中的那些显赫者都是一些跨国公司，它们尤其会受到利润的驱使而使其凌驾于标准和质量之上。在这一点上，政府摆脱不了干系，因为这些独立公司的突出地位是由于电视业的多次结构调整而造成的。在此过程中，旧的制作、播放一体的体制遭到瓦解，独立制作公司分得的蛋糕则越来越大。眼下，受到令人失望的许可证费用方案的推动，BBC进一步削减了它原本就已萎缩的制作基地，同时增加独立公司的节目编排。为什么这一点关系重大？因为由于实行外包，制作的交流和责任链条就被割裂，遇到难对付的商业供片商，播出方就很难监督和强化节目的水准。这一问题在公众讨论过程中很少为人所认识和理解。
Renewed values and purposes: these can’t stem the tide when the incentives are piled to encourage deliberate deception and the manufacture of celebrity. Finally, nor is it true to claim, as some executives complacently do, that audiences have only recently decided they expect more from television. For some years, research has shown that audiences are mightily fed up with the diet of lacking initiative, low-quality output. The BBC can’t reverse the rot alone. As has been recently grasped, integrity and quality are best cultivated competitively between media companies that are regulated and funded to deliver them.
重建的价值观和目的：这些都阻止不了道德滑坡的趋势，因为这个方面的因素都在激发从业者的蓄意欺骗和制造名人效应行为。最后，事实并不像一些管理者们得意声称的那样，观众们只是最近才决定对电视节目给予更多期待。研究显示，观众多年来早已受够了那些制作播出的相互抄袭、质量低劣的节目了。单靠BBC一家无法逆转这种腐败之势。正如最近认识到的那样，只有在加强监督和资金投入的同时，促进媒体公司之间的竞争，才是培养诚信和保证质量的最好办法。
The independents are a varied bunch. Some, like, End mol, are multinational subsidiaries that pride themselves on delivering ratings. Such companies can sometimes cross-subsidies to support adventurous fare. But, as an RDF executive told me, ultimately their operations are driven just as much by the bottom line. That RDF’s creative director, Stephen Lambert---previously in charge of some of the BBC’s finest documentary output----was the man who edited the culpable publicity tape is a tragic but telling symptom of the Faustian pact driving the TV industry. This is not just about Lambert’s individual failing; the rot is systematic.
这些独立制作公司形形色色。有些跨国公司的子公司，如End mol公司，它们以提高收视率的产品而感到自豪。这类公司有时候相互提供资金支持，以完成一些冒险性节日。但是，正如RDF的一位管理者告诉我的那样，他们经营的最终动力还是赢利。RDF的创意总监Stephen Lambert---过去曾是BBC制作出的一些最精良的记录片的负责人----就是对那盘难辞其咎的宣传录像带进行编辑加工的人。这一事实虽然令人悲哀，却是背后驱策电视业的浮士德契约的鲜活例证。这不只是Lambert个人的污点，这种腐败是全行业的。

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举报只看该作者 14楼发表于: 2014-03-10 0

考研时文阅读（15）
How safe is biosafe?
Dressed in blue scrubs and disposable underwear, Simon Caidan cautiously transfers liquid into a series of bottles inside the airtight cabinet in front of him. His arms are pushed up to his elbows in a pair of gloves sealed to the glass, preventing him from coming into contact with the potentially deadly material inside.
This is one of the most secure research laboratories in Britain, dealing with some of the world's most dangerous diseases. The threat posed by the pathogens kept here, on the outskirts of north London, is so great that the rooms are maintained at a lower air pressure than the outside to ensure nothing can escape when the doors are opened.
All the air passing through the building is filtered several times to strip it of even the finest particles, while staff have to remove all clothing before entering and must shower before leaving. If there is a leakage, the entire laboratory can be sealed and fumigated.
Yet, despite these formidable safety measures, it is from a laboratory similar to this that a foot and mouth virus is thought to have escaped, infecting nearby livestock. Initial reports into the outbreak in Normandy, Surrey, have pointed to a high-security laboratory in Pirbright, three miles away, shared by the government-funded Institute for Animal Health and a private drug firm, Merial UK.
The incident has sparked grave concerns about the state of the country's secure laboratories and the threat they pose. If a virus can escape from one such laboratory, can it happen again? And next time, could it be from a lab handling deadly human diseases?
In Britain, there are 15 “Containment Level Four” laboratories, the maximum bio-security level, across the country. Each handles some of the deadliest organisms known to man and animals: diseases that are highly infectious, fatal even in low doses and impossible to treat.
“I am surprised there has been a release from a facility in the UK, of all places,” said Dr Ingegerd Kallings, an expert on bio-safety for the World Health Organization and the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control. “You have good regulations in place.” For Dr Kallings, the escape of foot and mouth into the countryside around the Pirbright laboratory illustrates the weak link in the world's bio-security measures: people.
“It comes down to a lax attitude among the staff,” she said. “You can't really blame the age of a facility for an escape, as ultimately the bio-security is not a technical issue.”
What she, and other scientists, fear is that the tight regulations and safety measures can be rendered useless by carelessness. Adhering to safety protocols is tedious, and researchers can pick up bad habits or become complacent. Washing contaminated material down the wrong sink, for instance; carrying infected samples between rooms, or removing equipment from the laboratory before it has been properly decontaminated. All are hard to monitor and prevent.
                       生物安全有多安全?
     身穿蓝色防护服和一次性内衣, 西蒙﹒凯旦小心谨慎地将液体转移到面前密封柜中的一套小瓶子里。他将双臂伸进封帖在玻璃上的一副手套里，直至肘部，以防接触盗柜子里那具潜在致命性的物质。
     这是英国最为安全的科研实验室之一，位于伦敦北部郊区，从事世界上一些最具危险性疾病的研究。保存在这里的病原体具有非常大的危险性，因此实验室内的气压维持在低于外界气压的状态，以确保开门时不会发生任何泄露。
      所有经由实验室流通的空气都经过数次过滤，以除去哪怕最微小的颗粒，同时，工作人员在进入前必须除掉所有衣物，而且沐浴后才能离开。如果发生泄漏，整个实验室都要封闭，进行熏蒸消毒。
      然而，尽管采取了这些严密的安全措施，据认为还是有一个与其类似的实验室发生了口蹄疫病毒泄露，感染了附近的牲畜。关于萨里郡诺曼底所暴发的口蹄疫疫情的初步报告，把矛头指向了位于3英里之外皮尔布赖特的一所高安全性实验室。这所实验室由政府资助的动物卫生研究所和私营的英国梅里亚尔药品公司共管。
      该事件引发了人们对英国安全实验室的状况及其所构成威胁的严重关切。如果病毒能从这样的实验室外泄，那么此类事件是否会再次发生？而下一次，病毒是否会从研究致命性人类疾病的实验室外泄？
      英国拥有15所“四级防护”实验室，即全国最高生物安全级别实验室。每所实验室所研究的都是一些已知的对人和动物最致命的微生物：最有高度传染性的疾病，哪怕是最小剂量也会致命，而且绝无治愈的可能。
    “我很惊讶，在所有那些地方中，偏偏是在英国发生了泄露，”世界卫生组织及瑞典传染病研究所的生物安全专家英格德﹒克林斯博士说，“你们已经制定了严格的规章制度啊。”在克林斯博士可看来，口蹄疫病毒外泄到皮尔布赖特实验室附近的乡村，表明了世界生物安全措施中存在的薄弱环节：人。
    “归结到一点，就是工作人员态度松懈，”她说，“你的确不能把泄露的原因归为设备老化，因为归根结底生物安全不是一个技术问题。”
      她和其他科学家所担心的是，严格的规章制度和安全措施会因粗心大意而变得毫无用处。恪守安全议定书是件令人厌烦的事，研究人员会染上各种坏习惯或变得满不在乎。例如，在错误的水池冲洗被污染的物品，携带被感染的样品穿梭于各个房间，或者未经适当消毒就将设备带出实验室。所有这一切都难以进行监督和预防。
Malicious behavior is even harder to control, if a member of staff decides to smuggle a virus out of a facility. Doctors and scientists, as the recent terrorist attacks on Glasgow airport showed, can be radicalized like anyone else and many experts have pointed at the folly of keeping stocks of dangerous diseases so readily at hand.
Then there are the facilities themselves. Can a simple household electric shower, as used in the National Institute for Medical Research where Mr Caidan works, for instance, remove all traces of a virus?
“Lab accidents happen more frequently than the public knows,” says Ed Hammond, of the Sunshine Project, a non-profit-making organization that monitors the use of biological agents. “They are not always as spectacular as the one in the UK, but I believe there's a real culture of denial about the scale of the problem.”
In 2004, a Russian scientist working on an Ebola vaccine died after pricking her hand with a syringe, while in April 2005, a pandemic strain of Asian flu was released by a laboratory in America after it was accidentally put into test kits sent to scientists around the world. The last known case of smallpox occurred in 1978, when a researcher has resulted in the death of a member of the public...so far.
But campaigners fear that, with more and more research being carried out on these hazardous organisms, the risk of accidents and escapes is increasing. The viruses kept in Containment Level Four laboratories are among the most infectious. Just a few of the tiny organisms are needed to cause disease. Once out in the community, they would spread quickly, with little chance of controlling them, and there are effective treatments for few of them.
At the National Institute for Medical Research, scientists are studying the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus. Samples from infected people are brought to the facility in London's Mill Hill for analysis. Researchers have also been working on the 1918 pandemic flu strain that killed about 50 million people. If this strain of the virus were to escape, it could cause a fresh pandemic, as virtually no one would have immunity.
“This is why the regulations have to be so strict,” explains Mr Caidan, the head of safety for the site. “We are not just protecting our staff, but the environment and the general public.”
So why are we taking the risk at all? “We need to carry out research on these organisms so we can understand them better and produce ways of treating them,” says Prof Philip Duffus, an animal virologist at Bristol University. “We also need to handle samples for diagnosis of these diseases.”
While the investigation into how the foot and mouth virus escaped from the Pirbright site continues, there are now doubts as to whether the laboratory is still fit for purpose. There are also questions about whether liquid waste from the Merial buildings and the Institute for Animal Health laboratory was treated sufficiently to kill any virus it contained, and investigators are still examining whether the disease could have been carried off the site by a member of staff.
Regardless of the outbreak's cause, the safety of Britain's high-security laboratories will have to be improved. The WHO will publish new international standards for containing dangerous pathogens next year. The fear of the escape of a deadly human virus is sending many a shiver down white-coated spines.
    如果一名工作人员决意把病毒偷偷带出实验室，那么这种恶意行为就会更加难以控制。最近格拉斯哥机场遭到的恐怖袭击表明，医生和科学家与其他人一样也会变成激进分子，很多专家也指出，使大量危险性病菌唾手可得是件愚蠢的事。
       设备本身也有问题。简单的家用电淋浴----比如凯旦先生供职的国家医学研究所所使用的那种-----能够冲洗掉所有病毒残余吗？
     “实验室事故的发生比公众所知道的要频繁，”来自监控生物制剂使用的非赢利机构“阳光计划”的埃德﹒哈蒙德说，“这些事故并不像英国的这起这样惊人，不过我觉得，的确存在一种否认问题严重性的现象。”
     2004年，一位从事埃博拉病毒疫苗研究的俄罗斯科学家因被注射器扎伤了手而身亡；2005年4月，美国一家实验室在发往全世界科学家的试验箱中，不慎放入了一种亚洲型流感病株，导致病毒外泄。最近的一个为人所知的天花感染事件发生在1978年，当时伯明翰大学的一名研究人员受到感染。到目前为止，尚没有一起实验室事故导致公众死亡。
        但是社会活动人士担心，随着对这些危险微生物研究的日益增多，事故和外泄的风险也在增加。保存在“四级防护”实验室中的病毒都属于最具传染性的病毒。这些微小的生物体只需极少的一点就能致病。一旦外泄，就会迅速扩散，几无控制的可能，也没有有效的治疗方法。
       在国家医学研究所，科学家们正从事H5N1型致命性禽流感病毒的研究。从感染者身上获取的样本被带到伦敦米尔西尔的实验室进行分析。同时，研究人员也一直在研究1918年流感病株，那场流感造成大约5000万人死亡。如果该病毒的病株外泄，就会导致新一轮大流感暴发，因为几乎没有人能对其免疫。
    “这就是规章制度必须如此严格的原因，”实验场地安全负责人凯旦先生解释说，“我们不只是在保护自己的工作人员，而且也是在保护环境和公众。”
       那么我们为什么还要冒此风险呢？“我们需要对这些微生物进行研究，这样才能更好的了解它们，找到对付它们的办法，”布里斯托尔大学动物病毒学家菲利普﹒达弗斯说，“我们还需要研究样本，以诊断这些病毒。”
       尽管针对口蹄疫病毒如何从皮尔布赖特外泄的调查仍在继续，人们已经开始怀疑这个实验室是否还适于使用。同时，人们也在质疑梅里亚尔公司和动物卫生研究所共管的这所实验室排出的液体废物是否经过了充分处理，杀死了其中含带的任何病毒，而调查人员也仍在调查该病毒是否有被工作人员带出实验室的可能。
       一名最近参观过皮尔布赖特实验室的高级实验室安全专家也对日益老化的设备能否有效维护生物安全表示担忧。“我所见到的情况非常令人震惊，”他说，“那里有优秀的科学家，但是设备太老了，与更为现代化的设备相比，出错的可能性更大。”
       不管疫情暴发的原因是什么，英国高安全性实验室的安全必须得到加强。世界卫生组织明年将发布危险性病原体保存的国际新标准。致命性人类病毒外泄造成的恐惧令身着白大褂的试验人员脊骨发凉。

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举报只看该作者 15楼发表于: 2014-03-10 0

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The press in recent times has been all about the press. The Murdoch takeover of The Wall Street Journal has dominated the news. Is he a savior or a spoiler? Beyond that, there have been many articles recently about the      glum future of newspapers. Are they dying? Can the Internet save serious journalism?
The fact that these big newspapers have gone public makes things worse as Wall Street has weighed in with      attacks on the management of The New York Times and their lack of financial performance. Even Warren Buffet has pronounced that the present model------meaning print-----isn't going to work. Being publicly owned puts all the    focus on the numbers. And when you're trying to improve your numbers to make investors happy, you cut the things    you should be investing in such as people, promotion and innovation.
No one has worked harder to improve the numbers than Donald Graham, the   CEO of the Washington Post Co.. He was one of the first to aggressively push into the digital world, yet critics say Graham needs to move even     faster to get the business online.
In an effort to recapture young readers, the Post in 2003 started a free weekday newspaper called the Express, which now publishes 185,000 copies a day. It's profitable. A year later the company acquired El Tiempo     Latino, a Spanish-language weekly. It also publishes five paid-circulation suburban newspapers, 34 free suburban weeklies, 12 military newspapers, and real estate and auto guides. To squeeze a few more dollars out of its presses and trucks, the Post Co. distributes The Wall Street Journal in Washington, and it prints and circulates the local          edition of the satirical newspaper The Onion.
Yet, despite all this effort, print advertising revenue at the Post is six times that of Internet revenue. It's still           about the paper. Needless to say, all this is one tough marketing problem.
Sometimes to solve a problem in one industry you have to study other analogous industries. In this case I would look to the retail world. There are similarities. The store name is the brand where I go to shop. The newspaper       name is the brand where I go to read. In both instances, I go for what's in each, so content is important. And in both      instances, there are competitive forces that are causing great difficulties.
For example, good old Sears Roebuck has been under enormous price pressure from the likes of Wal-Mart and Home Depot. Sears, through the years, built very powerful brands. Names like Die Hard, Kenmore, Craftsman and Weather-beater Paint are what make the difference for Sears. If they are
to survive, their strategy should be to promote these brands as “sold only at Sears.” They can't compete on price or selection.
In my estimation, newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post have to pursue a similar “read only at” strategy. They have to work hard at aggressively branding their writers such as The Times' Tom Friedman, Maureen Dowd or Paul Krugman. The more powerful these brands become, the more I'll have to buy the     paper or pay to read them on the Internet. Also, the more I'll be willing to pay for the paper. The sports world understands this. If Tiger Woods isn't in the tournament, television ratings take a big hit. Why do you think that Los Angeles soccer team paid so much to get Beckham to kick a ball around?
Beyond the celebrity writers, newspapers have to talk more about their reporting staff----how many they have all around the world and their credentials. They have to point out that accuracy takes money, hard work and lots of talent. (Stuff you can't get from the bloggers, cable television or The Daily Show.) Many years ago, The Wall Street Journal ran an ad with the headline: “Every day the Kremlin gets 12 copies of The Wall Street Journal. Maybe they know something you don't know.” Now that's the kind of advertising I would like to see more of on behalf of their hardworking staffs.
What newspapers have to realize is that in today's over-communicated world, it's as much about content as it's about news. It's as much about celebrity as unknown reporters. It's as much about how you get the news as just     printing it. This might be a tough reality to face for the owners of these papers, but the barbarians are at the gates.     You've got to wheel out and aggressively promote your big guns, your organization and why you should be read.
And, if you keep your readers, the advertisers will come.
                                   报纸向何处去？
最近一个时期，媒体的报道都和新闻媒体有关。默克多收购《华尔街日报》事件占据了新闻报道的头条。他是个救星还是个毁灭者？除此之外，最近还有许多文章在探讨报纸的惨谈前景。报纸濒于消亡？互联网能拯救严肃的新闻事业吗？
大报社公司上市的事实会使得情况变得更糟，因为华尔街已经对《纽约时报》的管理不善和财务状况不佳提出了抨击。就连沃伦巴菲特都宣称，目前的模式-----意指印刷媒体----快不行了。上市使得人们只关注数字。当你试图改善这些数字以取悦投资者的时候，你就会置人才、推销和创新于不顾，而这些才是你应该投入精力关注的。
华盛顿邮报公司的首席执行官唐纳德格雷厄姆为改善这些数字所做出的努力无人能及。他是向数字领域狂飙突进的先行者之一，但批评家们说格雷厄姆还需要加快速度把业务推广到网路上。
为了重新获得年轻读者的青睐，华盛顿邮报公司在2003年推出了《快报》。这是一份供读者在工作日阅读的免费小报，目前的日发行量达18.5万份，收益颇丰。一年后，公司又把一家西班牙周刊 El Tiempo Latino 并购到旗下。华盛顿邮报公司还出版了5种郊区付费报纸，34种免费的郊区周刊，12种军事报纸，以及房地产和汽车指南读物等。为了能从其印刷成本和卡车运费中多省出几美元，该公司在华盛顿分销《华尔街日报》，并印刷和发行了本地版的讽刺类报纸《洋葱报》。
然而，然而在做了这么多努力的同时，华盛顿邮报公司的印刷广告收入达到了互联网广告收入的6倍。看来还是报纸的天下。不用说，所有这一切都是个棘手的营销问题。
为了解决一个行业中的某项问题。有时你必须去研究其他类似行业的情况。鉴于此，我将把目光投向零售业领域，因为二者之间存在着相似之处。商店名就是我去购物的品牌。报纸名就是我阅读的品牌。对于二者，我都要去看里面有什么，所以内容是很重要的。而在两种情况下，都会面临带来巨大挑战的竞争性力量。
       例如，大名鼎鼎的老牌西尔斯﹒罗巴克公司就一直承受着来自像沃尔玛和家得宝一类公司在价格上的巨大压力。西尔斯历经数年建立了非常强大的品牌优势。像 Die Hard、Kenmore、Craftsman 和 Weatherbeater Paint 一类的品牌造就了西尔斯的与众不同。如果它们想生存下去，其策略就必须是宣扬这些品牌是“西尔斯独家销售”。它们无法在价格或选择性上与其他强手展开竞争。
我估计，像《纽约时报》和《华盛顿邮报》这样的报纸必须追求一种类似的“独家刊载”的策略。它们必须力推高调树立其撰稿人的品牌形象，就像《纽约时报》的汤姆﹒弗里德曼，莫琳﹒多德或者保罗﹒克鲁格曼。这些品牌影响力越强，我就越得去买这份报纸，或付费在互联网上阅读，而且我也更心甘情愿地花钱买这份报纸。体育界是深谙此道的。如果泰格﹒伍兹不参加锦标赛，电视收视率就会大打折扣。你想，要不洛杉矶的足球队干嘛要花那么多钱请贝克汉姆来踢个球呢？
        除了明星撰稿人外，报纸还必须要宣扬其报道团队---它们在全世界有多少记者及其资历。它们必须指出，准确地报道需要金钱、努力工作和众多的才干。（这些你是无法从博客、有线电视或《每日秀》节目中获取的）。多年以前，《华尔街日报》刊载的一条广告的大标题是：“克里姆林宫每天都订12份《华尔街日报》。或许他们知道一些你不知道的事。”现在，这就是我更加想看到的广告，它代表了那些辛勤工作的员工们。
        报纸必须认识到，在当今这个通讯过度发达的世界，内容与新闻同等重要。名人与无名记者同等重要。获取新闻的渠道与刊载新闻同等重要。对这些报纸的所有者来说，这可能是个需要面对的严酷现实，但野蛮人就站在门口虎视眈眈地等着收购你。你必须赶快行动，积极宣传你的大腕作者、你的团队和让人阅读你的报纸的理由。
       何况，如果你能笼络住读者，广告商也就接踵而至了。

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等级: 内阁元老

配偶: 浮生缘

http://www.paipai.fm/r5969083/

举报只看该作者 16楼发表于: 2014-03-11 0

考研时文阅读（17）
篇章分析
本文是一篇说明文，主要介绍了两位博士对午睡和健康关系的一项最新研究。第一段提出了有关午睡的话题，并以一些名人的午睡特点来加以例证，接着介绍了纳斯卡和特里克伯罗斯所进行的研究，说明午睡可以延长人的生命；第二段进一步详细地阐述其研究的结果；第三段作者驳斥了地中海饮食可能影响实验结果可信度的说法；在第四段里，特里克伯罗斯博士建议人们为了健康尽量午睡。
Sloth(怠惰, 懒惰) may be seen as a sin, but some of history's most accomplished men were fond of lounging around. Leonardo da Vinci enjoyed napping. So did Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill. Richard Buckminster Fuller advocated taking 30-minute naps every six hours. No one has yet proved a correlation between napping and artistic brilliance or professional success, but an intriguing study published this week claims to find a link between daytime siestas and good health. A team of researchers led by Androniki Naska and Dimitrios Trichopoulos of Harvard's School of Public Health followed over 23,000 Greek patients with no history of cancer or stroke, for an average of six years. Their conclusion: napping just might save your life.
The study found that the group of adults who took 30-minute siestas at least three times a week had a third fewer deaths from heart disease than an equivalent group who did not sleep at all during the day. The benefit was greater for men than for women. It was also greater for working males than for those who had retired. However, a number of previous studies done in the Mediterranean and in parts of Central America (where siestas remain common) have come up with conflicting results, but Dr. Naska and Dr. Trichopoulos argue that those studies have often been flawed. The subjects in some, for example, had survived heart attacks and may therefore have benefited more from napping than healthy individuals do.
Given that all of the subjects of this new study were Greeks; could the much-celebrated Mediterranean diet deserve credit, rather than the siestas? The firm answer from Dr Trichopoulos is “No”. And he is in a good position to say so, for it was he who did the pioneering research that put olive oil and a plant-based diet on the scientific map in the first place. Unlike some other nap studies, his was controlled for diet, smoking, exercise and other relevant variables. The earlier findings about the benefits of the Mediterranean diet are confirmed, he says, and napping seems to help on top of that.
Before buying a sofa for the office, however, it might be wise to consider the possibility of selection bias. Dr Trichopoulos concludes that “Type A” personalities, whose hard-working lives may make them prone to heart attacks, are also much less likely to take naps during the day. That bias might be distorting the study's results. Even so, he advises, “Take a nap if you can.”
参考译文
懒惰也许会被人们认为是一种罪过，但是历史上一些最成功的人士却喜欢悠闲懒散的生活。列奥纳多•达芬奇喜欢午睡，阿尔伯特爱因斯坦和温斯顿丘吉尔也一样喜欢午睡。里查德巴克明斯行福勒提倡每隔6个小时就小睡30分钟。没有人能够证明午睡与杰出的艺术才能或者事业上的成功有相互关系，但是本周一份引人入胜的研究报告声称发现了日间午睡与健康之间的一种联系。一个由安德罗尼基•纳斯卡和哈佛公共卫生学院的特里克伯罗斯所领导的研究小组对23,000名没有癌症或者中风记录的希腊病人，进行了长达6年的研究，该研究结果表明：午睡有可能延长人的生命。
这项研究发现，那些每周至少午休3次，且每次午睡至少30分钟的成人组与日间从不午休的成人组相比，患心脏病致死的概率低了1/3。男性从午睡中的获益比女性更加明显。上班的男性比退休人士的获益更为明显。但是，在午休仍然普遍的地中海地区和中美洲的部分地区曾进行过的一些研究得到的却是与此矛盾的结果，不过纳斯卡博士和特里克伯罗斯博士认为这些研究都存在问题。比如，一些曾经有过心脏病发作史的研究对象从午睡中的获益相对于那些健康人要明显得多。
鉴于所有的研究对象都是希腊人，那些影响因素是否是驰名的地中海饮食而不是午休呢？特里克伯罗斯博士坚定地回答说“不”。他的回答是令人信服的，因为正是他开创性地将橄榄油和以素食为主的饮食放到科学领域内来进行研究。与其它关于午休研究不同的是，他的研究控制了饮食、吸烟、运动和其他相关的变量。他说，早前关于地中海饮食益处的研究已经得到了肯定，而午睡在饮食的基础上也起到了最为重要的作用。
在办公室添置沙发之前, 最好还是先考虑一下选择性偏见的可能性。特里克伯罗斯博士认为那些辛勤工作从而易发心脏病的“A型”个性的人，在白天小睡比较少。这些偏见也许会与研究报告的结果相矛盾。即便如此，特里克伯罗斯博士还是建议，“如果可以的话就小睡一会吧”。
篇章结构分析
本文论述了肥胖在人与人之间的相互影响及其相互影响这一问题。第一段通过一个最新研究来引出人们越来越肥胖这一话题；第二段用具体数据进一步阐述了这一研究结果；第三段论述了朋友关系对于肥胖的不同影响及其原因；第四段指出家庭关系和兄弟姐妹关系对肥胖有影响，但并不重要，真正重要的原因是其社会标准。最后一段提出人与人之间的这种相互影响关系也同样适用于减肥。
核心词组
participate in  参加，参与
in the context of 在…背景下，在…环境下
identify…as… 把…当作是
for one thing 首先，第一
  have … to do with  与…有关
as much …as 与…一样多，与…一样也是
  be involved in 与…有关，卷入到
after all 毕竟
According to the new research appearing in the July 26 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, obesity isn't just spreading; rather, it may be contagious between people, like a common cold. Researchers from Harvard and the University of California, San Diego, reviewed a database of 12,067 densely interconnected people who had all participated in a major American heart study between 1971 and 2003. It was that information that the NEJM authors mined to explore obesity in the context of a social network.
From their analysis, when a study participant's friend became obese, that first participant had a 57% greater chance of becoming obese himself. In pairs of people in which each identified the other as a close friend, when one person became obese the other had a 171% greater chance of following suit. James Fowler, a political scientist at UC San Diego says that it's not just that people who share similar lifestyles become friends. For one thing, geographic distance between friends in the study seemed to have no impact: friends who lived a 5-hour drive apart and saw each other infrequently were just as influenced by each other's weight gains as those who lived close enough to share weekly take-out meals or basketball games.
The best proof that friendship caused the weight gain, says Fowler, is that people were much more likely to pattern their own behavior on the actions of people they considered friends — but the relationship didn't work in the other direction. If you had named another person as a friend, and your friend became obese, then you were more than 50% more likely to get fat too. But if your friend had not named you as a mutual friend, and you became obese, it would have no significant impact on your friend's weight.
Spouses share meals and a backyard, but the researchers found a much smaller risk of gaining weight—a 37% increase—when one spouse became obese. Siblings share genes, but their influence, too, was much smaller, increasing each other's risk 40%. Fowler believes the effect has much more to do with social norms: whom we look to when considering appropriate social behavior. Having fat friends makes being fat seem more acceptable.
Fowler and Christakis say that the contagion-effect should hold just as much for weight loss as it does for weight gain. "I would hope this influences individuals to get friends and families involved in decisions about health," Fowler says. After all, he says, a weight-loss plan may be more effective if the people closest to you are on a diet. And, if you're successful, your good health will help others achieve a healthy weight too. The impact extends not just to your friends; it turns out — but also to your friends' friends, and even to their friends.
参考译文
根据7月26日出版的《新英格兰医学杂志》，肥胖不仅越来越多，而且它会像感冒一样, 在人与人之间传播。来自哈佛大学和加州大学圣地亚哥分校的研究者查阅了1971至2003年期间参与了美国一项重要心脏研究的12,067位受访者的数据库。受访者之间大多数都有亲密的关系。正是由于这个信息，使得研究者对社会关系对肥胖的影响产生了研究兴趣。
这项研究认为，如果受访者的朋友肥胖的话，那些受访者自己变胖的可能性会高出常人57%。如果两人互为密友的话，那么这一机率将会高出常人171%。加州大学圣地亚哥分校的政治学家詹姆斯•福勒认为不仅仅是只有共同生活习惯的人才会成为朋友。一方面，研究表明朋友之间的地理位置差距不会有影响，相距车程仅5小时但经常不见面的朋友关系对肥胖的影响和每周都一起吃外卖或打篮球的朋友关系一样。
詹姆斯•福勒认为友谊引起肥胖的最好证据就是，人们倾向于和朋友们做一样的事情。如果你把一个人当作朋友，如果他变肥胖了的话，那你的肥胖概率会高出常人50%。要是他不把你当朋友，那么即使你胖了，对他也没影响。
夫妻共处一室，共同进餐，为什么当双方之一变胖的时候，另一方肥胖概率仅仅高了37%。兄弟姐妹们的基因差不多，但他们之间的影响却小得多，只有40%的风险。福勒相信这更多的是由于社会标准的原因，我们看人的时候总是在考虑什么是合适的社会行为。如果你的朋友肥胖，这就意味着你认为肥胖是可以接受的。
福勒和克里斯塔克斯认为这种“朋友之间的影响效应”对于减肥和发胖的影响是一样的。“我希望这个研究能使人们在考虑健康状况时把家人和朋友的因素也考虑进去。” 毕竟，如果你最亲密的朋友与你一起减肥，那么这个计划会更加成功。同时，如果你成功减肥，那么你的健康也会帮助其他人达到理想的体重。这种效果不仅对于你的朋友有效，并且对你朋友的朋友，以及他们的朋友都会有影响。

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等级: 内阁元老

配偶: 浮生缘

http://www.paipai.fm/r5969083/

举报只看该作者 17楼发表于: 2014-03-11 0

考研时文阅读（18）
At the World Bank in Washington, officials have posted some new “help wanted” signs. The bank is looking for a few good specialists to focus on adapting to global warming. It’s a small start, perhaps. Still, the ads represent one signal that adaptation is emerging from the political doghouse to take its place among the front-rank options for dealing with climate change.
  At least in the developed world, the idea that people should start figuring out how to deal with the projected effects of warming has been overshadowed by calls to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. Some environmentalists have viewed adaptation either as a white flag on the issue or as a refuge of contrarians who despise the broad consensus that human activity is warming the climate.
  But last week’s release of a report on the science of global warming----with its projections of warming based on emissions already in the air, as well as on potential future emissions trends----has helped underscore the need. “Climate change is here and now,” notes Ian Noble, a senior climate-change specialist at the World Bank. “We have to adapt.”
  In some cases, adaptation can be politically wrenching. Australia, for example, is facing the worst drought in a century. The drought’s length and severity is consistent with some projections of global warming, several scientists note. The national government has proposed a controversial, $ 2.5-billion (Australian) plan to wrest control of the withering Murray-Darling river basin----the country’s largest river system---from the four states in eastern Australia that draw water from it. Meanwhile, Queensland has adopted regulations that since last March have required each new home in the state to draw nearly 40 percent less water than pre-2006 homes. In some towns, building codes specify the installation of large holding tanks to capture and store rain for use in the gardens and to flush toilets.
  If Australia represents the dry end of the adaptation spectrum in the develop world, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast may well represent the wet end. The region is still struggling to recover from hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. The tragedy surrounding those two storms underline just how maladapted major population centers in the region are to today’s conditions, let alone those that might hold in 2050 or 2100, experts say.
  “The reality is that we should be adapting ” and tackling carbon-dioxide emissions at the same time, notes Roger Pielke Jr., a science-policy specialist at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

   华盛顿世界银行的官员们发布了新的“紧急招募令”。他们正在寻找几位可以胜任的专家来重点研究顺应全球变暖的问题。
   也许这只是个小小的开端。然而，这则招聘启事还透露出一个信息：应对全球气候变化的各种对策中，顺应变化已经成为政界的优先之选。
   至于在发达国家，对于人类应开始设法应对气候变暖的突出影响的呼吁，已经被减少二氧化碳排放的呼声所压倒。一些环境保护论者认为，顺应变化要么意味着对全球变暖问题举白旗，要么就是反对派的权宜之计，他们蔑视人类活动引起了气候变暖这种广泛共识。
   然而，上周发布的一份全球变暖科学报告基于已排入大气的二氧化碳数量及未来可能的排放量对气候变暖作出预测，突出了顺应变化的必要性。世行高级气候变化专家Ian Noble说：“气候变化是个迫在眉睫的问题，我们不得不去顺应变化。”
    一些情况下，顺应变化可能意味着政策上的重大转变。例如，澳大利亚，该国正在遭遇百年不遇的特大旱灾。一些科学家指出，此次旱灾的持续时间及强度与一些关于全球变暖的预测相一致。澳大利亚政府已经提出一个具争议性的、耗资25亿澳元的方案，以求从自墨累—达令河取水的澳大利亚东部四州那里夺回流域控制权，挽救这一该国最大河系，使其避免干涸的命运。同时，昆士兰州已经下达细则，从去年3月起，要求该州新建住宅用水量比2006年前住宅减少约40%。一些城镇的建筑规范明确规定建筑物需设有大型储水槽来收集和储存雨水，用于灌溉园林和冲洗抽水马桶。
    如果说澳大利亚是发达国家中顺应气候变化的干旱区的代表，那么新奥而良与墨西哥湾岸地区则算得上涝灾区的典型。这个地区依然未能从2005年的“卡特里娜”与“丽塔”飓风中完全恢复。专家称，从那两场灾难就可以看出该地区主要人口密集区与当前环境的强烈不适，更不用说，2050年或2100年可能出现的状况了。
    位于博尔得的科罗拉多大学科学政策专家小罗杰派而克指出：“现实情况就是我们应该顺应变化”，在此同时也需要去处理二氧化碳排放问题。

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ZxID：11247485

等级: 内阁元老

配偶: 浮生缘

http://www.paipai.fm/r5969083/

举报只看该作者 18楼发表于: 2014-03-11 0

考研时文阅读（19）
篇章结构分析
本文是一篇说明文，通过两项研究来阐述了黑猩猩的语言能力，以及它们的手势和面部表情的一些特点。前两段介绍了卡德勒夫妇的研究成果并引出后两位学者对黑猩猩的其它特征的研究；第三、四段分别介绍了两位学者所提出的研究假设及其研究的结果；末段进一步阐述了手势对于人类大脑语言能力的进化作用。
核心词组记忆
attribute n. 属性, 品质, 特征              sophistication  n. 复杂，精致
hard-wired adj. 天生的                     adept adj. 熟练的, 拿手
render vt. 致使，导致                      successor n. 继承者, 接任者
  end in v. 以 … 而结束                      be incapable of adj. 不能够
  be equivalent to  相当于，类似于            no doubt 毫无疑问
  be confined to v.  局限在，限制在             to some extent 在某种程度上
  by contrast 相比之下                        come up with 提出，想出
  vary with  因… 而不同/变化                 be built on  以…为基础，指望，依靠
Previous attempts to teach chimpanzees to talk had ended in failure and the matter was considered by most people to be closed. But the Gardners realized that speech and language are not the same thing. Many deaf people, for example, are unable to speak but are perfectly able to communicate by gestures that have all the attributes and sophistication of spoken language. So the Gardners suspected that previous experiments had failed because chimps are physically incapable of speech.
They therefore decided to try teaching a chimpanzee to sign in the way that deaf people do. And their chosen subject, a female chimp named Washoe, proved an adept pupil. Though there is still debate about whether what Washoe learned was really equivalent to human language, there is no doubt that she now has a vocabulary of about 200. All of this, however, raises a second question. If Washoe and her successors can learn a complex and arbitrary vocabulary of gestures from people, do they have such vocabularies naturally? To examine that possibility, Amy Pollick and Frans de Waal have looked at gestures and expressions in chimpanzees.
Signaling by facial and vocal expression is present among primates. Signaling by gesture is confined to the great apes. The researchers' hypothesis was that the meaning of expressions has been hard-wired by evolution whereas the meaning of gestures is learnt and, at least to some extent, is arbitrary. If that were true, particular sorts of facial and vocal expression would occur only in particular contexts, and  this would be consistent across groups and even species. The same gestures, by contrast, would be used in different contexts.
The researchers found exactly what they expected. Expressions (“silent bared teeth”, “relaxed open mouth”, etc) almost always occurred in the same contexts in different groups and different species. Gestures (“hard touch”, “reach outside”, etc) did not. Half of the gestures Dr. Pollick and Dr. de Waal regularly observed seemed to have completely different meanings in the two species. Moreover, even within a single group, the meaning of a gesture could vary with context, almost as tone of voice can vary the meaning of a human's spoken word.
It is also worth remembering that gesture is still a crucial part of human language, even for those with normal hearing. Evolution does not come up with complicated structures in a single leap. They are built up step by step. This study suggests that the step of speech may have been built on mental attributes that were acquired millions of years ago when the ancestors of apes and men began to wave meaningfully at each other.

参考译文
以前曾试图教黑猩猩说话的尝试最后都以失败而告终，大多数人认为这项研究就此结束了。但是卡德勒夫妇意识到说话和语言是两码事。比如说，许多聋哑人不能说话，但是却能熟练地用手势进行交流，这些手势都包含了人类语言的那些特点和复杂度。因此卡德勒夫妇认为前人研究的失败是因为黑猩猩生理上就不能说话。
因此，他们决定试着教一只黑猩猩掌握使用聋哑人的手势。他们选择的研究对象是一只名叫Washoe的雌性黑猩猩，结果这只黑猩猩成了一个能熟练使用手势的“学生”。尽管人们对Washoe学会的单词到底算不算人类语言存在争议，但毫无疑问她现在已掌握了约200个单词的词汇量。所有这一切又提出了第二个问题。如果Washoe和她的后代能够从人类那里学会复杂和任意性的词汇，那么他们是不是天生就拥有这些词汇呢？为了验证这种可能性，爱米•波利克和弗朗斯•德瓦尔对一些黑猩猩的手势和表情进行了研究。
通过面部表情和声音来发送信号在灵长类动物中很普遍。但只有大猩猩才能用手势发送信号。研究者的假设是，表情的意义是通过进化天生而成的，而手势的意义是后天学成的，至少在一定程度上是任意的。如果这个假设成立，那么特别的面部表情和声音就只会在特殊的情境下才能发生，而且在种群甚至是物种之间都是一致的。相反，同样的手势却能够在不同的情境下使用。
研究结果正如研究者所料。不同种群以及不同物种之间几乎都会在相同的情境下使用一些表情（比如“不出声地露齿”、“放松地张嘴”等），但它们不会用相同的手势（比如“硬碰”、“向外伸手”等）。波利克和德瓦尔博士定期观察到，两个物种有一半手势在意义上完全不同。此外，即使是在同一物种内部，一个手势的意义可能会随情境的不同而变化，几乎就像人类说话时用不同的声调可以表示不同的意义那样。
值得我们记住的是，手势仍然是人类语言中一个至关重要的组成部分，即使是对那些没有正常听力的人而言。进化并不是一步就能达到其复杂结构的，而是一步一步累积起来的。这项研究说明了，数百万年前，当我们的猿人和人类祖先开始有意义地彼此挥手的时候，语言能力就在已获得的这种脑力特征上不断地向前发展。

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ZxID：11247485

等级: 内阁元老

配偶: 浮生缘

http://www.paipai.fm/r5969083/

举报只看该作者 19楼发表于: 2014-03-11 0

考研时文阅读（20）
Several years ago, at the height of the dotcom boom, it was widely assumed that a publishing revolution, in which the printed word would be supplanted by the computer screen, was just around the corner. It wasn’t: for many, there is still little to match the joy of reading a printed book and settling down for one hour. But recently   some big technology companies, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo, contend that the dream of bringing books online is still very much alive.
The digitizing of thousands of volumes of print is not without controversy. On Thursday, Google, the world’s most popular search engine, posted a first installment of books on Google Print. This collaborative effort between Google and several  world’s leading research libraries aims to make books available to be searched and read online free of charge. Although the books included so far are not covered by copyright, the plan has attracted the rage of publishers.
Five large book firms are suing Google for violating copyright on material that it has scanned and, although out of print, is still protected by law. Google has said that it will only publish short extracts from material under copyright unless given express permission to publish more, but publishers are unconvinced. Ironically, many publishers are collaborating with Google Print Publisher, which aims to give readers an online taste of books that are commercially available. The searchable collection of extracts and book information is intended to tempt readers to buy the complete books online or in print form.
Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, has made plans to enter the mass e-book market by selling a vast array of goods. Given that Google should impinge upon its central territory, Amazon revealed that it would introduce two new services. Amazon Pages will allow customers to search for key terms in selected books and then buy and read online whatever part they wish. Amazon Upgrade will give customers online access to books they have already purchased as hard copies. Customers are likely to have to pay five cents a page, with the bulk going to the publisher.
Microsoft has also joined the online-book trend. In October, the software giant said it would spend around $ 200m to digitize texts, starting with 150,000 that are in the public domain, to avoid legal problems. It will do so in collaboration with the Open Content Alliance. And on Thursday, coincidentally the same day as Google and Amazon announced their initiatives, Microsoft released details of a deal with the British Library, the country’s main reference library, to digitize some 25m pages; these will be made available through MSN Book Search, which will be launched next year.

篇章结构分析
本文是一篇说明文，主要论论了当今各大技术公司纷纷推出在线图书服务的计划和行动。第一段提出了电脑阅读和印刷书阅读的特点，接着用But转折引出本文的主题，即在线阅读服务。第二、三段介绍了Google的在线图书行动，并指出在线图书存在的问题，及其出版商对在线图书服务持矛盾的态度。第四、五段介绍了亚马逊公司和微软公司在线图书计划及行动。

核心词汇记忆
supplant 取代，代替                    around the corner 即将到来
free of charge 免费的                     out of print 不再出版/印刷
is intended to 目的在于                    impinge upon 侵害，侵犯
a vast array of 一系列                       in collaboration with 与…合作
it was widely assumed that 人们普遍认为

参考译文
几年前，在网站建设繁荣的高峰时期，人们普遍认为，一场由电脑屏幕将取代传统印刷的出版革命即将到来。但这一革命并没有到来：对许多人来说，电脑阅读所带来的乐趣不能与安下心来坐一小时读一本印刷书的乐趣相比。但最近这些大技术公司（包括Google, Amazon, 微软和雅虎）认为，将书放到互联网的梦想依然充满了生命力。
把数以千计的印刷版书籍电子化并不是毫无争议。星期四，业界最受欢迎的搜索引擎Google在其Google Print上发布了第一期书目。Google和几个全球领先的研究性图书馆共同合作，旨在使读者能够在互联网上搜索到书籍并且能够免费阅读。虽然目前这些相关的书籍不受到版权保护，但该计划依然引起了出版商们的愤怒。
五大图书出版公司正在控告Google因扫描一些读物而侵犯了版权，尽管这些书籍已不再印刷出版，但它们仍受到法律的保护。Google声称对于那些受版权保护的书籍只会发布简短的摘录，并在取得出版商明确的同意之前不会发布更多的信息，但出版商们并不认可这一做法。有趣的是，许多出版商都在与Google Print Publisher合作，旨在为读者提供有偿的网上阅读服务。这些可以搜索到的内容摘要和书的信息意在吸引读者购买在线书籍的完整版本或是印刷版。
世界上最大的网上零售商亚马逊（Amazon）已经计划通过销售一系列的产品来进军大众电子书籍市场。由于Google将进军亚马逊的中心地带，亚马逊透露将提供两项新的服务。Amazon Pages允许用户在选定的书籍中用关键字进行查询，然后用户还可以选择购买或是在线阅读书中的任何一部分。Amazon Upgrade 在用户购买印刷版书籍后为其提供该书的电子版。用户可能需要支付每页5美分的费用，这将为出版商带来巨大的收益。
微软也加入了在线书籍这一趋势。10月，这个软件业巨头称将投资2亿美元用于书籍电子化，为了避免法律纠纷，首期计划只包括15万本属于公共领域的书籍。微软将选择与Open Content Aliance合作。碰巧的是，在Google和亚马逊发布其新计划的同一天，即星期四，微软公布了与英国主要参考书图书馆大英博物馆的合作的详细内容。该计划准备2500万页相关书籍电子化，到明年用户就可以通过MSN Book Search来使用该项服务了。

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