考研英語閱讀經典美文

　　在全國碩士研究生入學英語考試中,閱讀理解試題在整個試卷中佔很大比重,其重要程度不言而喻。想要提高英語閱讀能力，最好的辦法就是多看多練。為了提高大家的閱讀水平，下面是小編為大家帶來，希望大家喜歡!

　　：來自外星人的訊號

　　The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Institute ***SETI***, listening to the cosmos for signs of signals from alien civilizations, may be monitoring the wrong “channels,” a U.S. astrophysicist says.

　　一位美國天體物理學家表示，地外智慧生命搜尋研究所***SETI***一直以來探索宇宙外星文明訊號的方法可能是“走了彎路”。

　　Gregory Benford of the University of California, Irvine, says such a civilization wanting to announce its presence would transmit “cost-optimized” narrowly focused signals, not the continuous omni-directional signals the SETI program has been scanning for, a university release said recently.

　　美國加州大學歐文分校的科學家格雷戈裡·本福德近日稱，試圖跟人類建立聯絡的外星人很可能從“成本最優”方面考慮只發送較短的定向資訊，而不是漫無方向地持續傳送資訊。而SETI 一直以來搜尋的資訊正是後者。

　　“This approach is more like Twitter and less like War and Peace, ”James Benford, Gregory Benford`s twin and fellow physicist, says.

　　“這種傳送訊息的方法更像是推特***Twitter***，而不是場面巨集大的《戰爭與和平》，”格雷戈裡·本福德的孿生兄弟，物理學家詹姆斯·本福德說。

　　“Whatever the life form, evolution selects for economy of resources. Transmitting signals across light years would require considerable resources.”

　　“不論是何種生命形式，進化的方向都是節約資源。穿越光年傳送資訊，要花費相當巨大的資源。”

　　They says alien signals would not be blasted out in all directions but narrowly directed in the one-to-ten gigahertz broadband signal range and SETI’s broad sweeping search could leave many days when brief Twitter-like flashes of “ here we are” from alien civilizations go undetected.

　　他們還說，外星人不會向外漫無目的地全方位傳送訊號，而只會在1-10千兆赫的波段內定向傳送。但SETI 採取的是大範圍的訊號掃描方式，這樣一來，在外星文明發出“我們在這兒!”的訊號時，可能就已經錯過SETI 的掃描了。

　　Such short, targeted blips, dubbed Benford beacons, should be the targets of SETI efforts, a growing number of scientists say.

　　越來越多的科學家支援他們的觀點，認為這種簡短、定向的資訊***被稱為本福德訊號***才應該是SETI 搜尋的目標。

　　And the Benfords also suggest concentrating the search on our own Milky Way galaxy, especially its center where 90 percent of its stars are located.“

　　本福德兄弟還建議將搜尋地點鎖定在我們自身所處的銀河系，特別是90%恆星所在的中心地區。

　　The stars there are a billion years older than our sun,” Gregory Benford says, “which suggests a greater possibility of contact with an advanced civilization than does pointing SETI receivers outward to the newer and less crowded edge of our galaxy. ”

　　“那裡的恆星壽命比太陽還早10 億年，”格雷戈裡·本福德說，“這意味著那裡更有可能存在高等智慧生命。這比將SETI 的天線對準銀河系邊緣更年輕恆星、也更稀疏的區域要好得多了。”

　　：學音樂的好處

　　Learning to play a musical instrument can change your brain, with a US review finding music training can lead to improved speech and foreign language skills.

　　掌握一門樂器能夠使大腦發生變化。這是美國的一項最新研究發現，通過音樂訓練還能夠提高演講和外語水平。

　　Although it has been suggested in the past that listening to Mozart or other classical music could make you smarter, there has been little evidence to show that music boosts brain power.

　　儘管過去就有人提到過聽莫扎特或其他古典音樂可以讓人變得更聰明，但是並沒有足夠的證據證明音樂能提高人的智商。

　　But a data-driven review by Northwestern University has pulled together research that links musical training to learning that spills over into skills including language, speech, memory, attention and even vocal emotion.

　　如今，美國西北大學的一項研究從資料出發，分析探討了音樂訓練對語言、演講、記憶力、注意力甚至感情表達等能力的影響。

　　Researcher Nina Kraus said the data strongly suggested that the neural connections made during musical training also enhanced the brain for other aspects of human communication.

　　據研究人員妮娜·克勞斯介紹，他們的研究資料充分表明，音樂訓練過程中所產生的神經元連線能增強大腦在人際溝通等方面的能力。

　　“ The effect of music training suggests that, akin to physical exercise and its impact on body fitness, music is a resource that tones the brain for auditory fitness and thus requires society to re-examine the role of music in shaping individual development,”the researchers said in their study.

　　在研究報告中，這些研究人員這樣說道：“與體育鍛煉對身體健康的影響一樣，音樂能夠增強大腦活力，增強聽覺的敏銳度。所以我們有必要重視音樂在個人發展中所起的作用。”

　　Kraus said learning musical sounds could enhance the brain’s ability to adapt and change and also enable the nervous system to provide a scaffolding of patterns that are important to learning.

　　克勞斯還說，學習聲樂能夠提高大腦的應變能力，也可以幫助神經系統建立起一個有利於學習的架構。

　　The study, published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, looked at the explosion of research in recent years focused on the effects of music training on the nervous system which could have strong implications for education.

　　該成果發表於《神經系統科學自然評論》上，對近幾年該領域內的最新研究進行了回顧和分析。這些研究主要關注的是音樂訓練對神經系統的影響及其可能會對教育產生的潛在影響。

　　The study found that playing an instrument primes the brain to choose what is relevant in a complex process that may involve reading or remembering a score, timing issues and coordination with other musicians.

　　研究發現，演奏樂器能幫助提升大腦從各種複雜的過程中分辨出有價值資訊的能力，這一複雜的過程可能包括看譜、記譜，計時或與其他樂師配合等。

　　“A musician’s brain selectively enhances information-bearing elements in sound,” Kraus said in a statement. “In a beautiful interrelationship between sensory and cognitive processes, the nervous system makes associations between complex sounds and what they mean.”

　　克勞斯在一項宣告中說：“音樂家的大腦能夠有選擇性地從聲音中分辨出載有資訊的元素。在感覺和認知的不斷互動和融合中，神經系統能把複雜的聲音和它們所表達的意思聯絡起來。”