關於經典英文背誦文章
背誦式語言輸入是我國傳統的最有效的語言學習方法之一。下面是小編帶來的，歡迎閱讀!
篇一
Skyscrapers and Environment
摩天大樓與環境
In the late 1960's, many people in North America turned their attention to environmental problems, and new steel-and-glass skyscrapers were widely criticized. Ecologists pointed out that a cluster of tall buildings in a city often overburdens public transportation and parking lot capacities.
60年代後期，許多北美人把注意力轉向了環境問題，那些嶄新的玻璃鋼摩天大樓受到了廣泛的批評。生態學家指出，城市中密集的高層建築經常給公共交通與停車場的承載能力造成過重的負擔。
Skyscrapers are also lavish consumers, and wasters, of electric power. In one recent year, the addition of 17 million square feet of skyscraper office space in New York City raised the peak daily demand for electricity by 120, 000 kilowatts -- enough to supply the entire city of Albany, New York, for a day.
摩天大樓還是電能的過度消費者與浪費者。最近的某一年，紐約市摩天寫字樓1，700萬英尺辦公面積的增加使電能的最高日需求量提高了120，000千瓦。這些電能足以供紐約的整個奧爾巴尼市使用一天。
Glass-walled skyscrapers can be especially wasteful. The heat loss ***or gain*** through a wall of half-inch plate glass is more than ten times that through a typical masonry wall filled with insulation board. To lessen the strain on heating and air-conditioning equipment, builders of skyscrapers have begun to use double-glazed panels of glass, and reflective glasses coated with silver or gold mirror films that reduce glare as well as heat gain. However, mirror-walled skyscrapers raise the temperature of the surrounding air and affect neighboring buildings.
玻璃表面的摩天大樓特別地浪費。 通過半英寸的平板玻璃牆壁損失***或增加***的熱量是典型的加入絕緣板的石牆所允許的熱量損失***或增加***的十倍以上。為了減輕取暖裝置或空調裝置的壓力，摩天大樓的建造者們已經開始使用雙面上釉的玻璃鑲板和塗上了金色或銀色反光薄膜的反光玻璃，來減少強光照射和熱量的增加;但是，鏡面的摩天大樓會提高周圍空氣的溫度並會對附近的建築物產生影響。
Skyscrapers put a severe strain on a city's sanitation facilities, too. If fully occupied, the two World Trade Center towers in New York City would alone generate 2.25 million gallons of raw sewage each year -- as much as a city the size of Stanford, Connecticut, which has a population of more than 109, 000.
摩天大樓也對城市的衛生設施造成了沉重的壓力。單單紐約市的二個世界貿易中心大樓如果完全被佔滿的話，每年就會產生2，250，000加侖的汙水。 這相當於康涅狄格州的斯坦福市這樣大的城市一年所產生的汙水量，而康州的斯坦福市擁有109，000人口。
篇二
Piano
鋼琴
The ancestry of the piano can be traced to the early keyboard instruments of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries -- the spinet, the dulcimer, and the virginal. In the seventeenth century the organ, the clavichord, and the harpsichord became the chief instruments of the keyboard group, a supremacy they maintained until the piano supplanted them at the end of the eighteenth century.
鋼琴的家系可以追溯至15至16世紀早期的鍵盤樂器，包括小型撥絃琴、洋琴和維金娜琴。17世紀時風琴、敲絃琴和撥絃琴成為鍵盤樂器類的主要成員。這種至高無上的地位一直為它們所保持，直到18世紀末期鋼琴將它們取代。
The clavichord's tone was metallic and never powerful; nevertheless, because of the variety of tone possible to it, many composers found the clavichord a sympathetic instrument for intimate chamber music.
敲弦古鋼琴的音調有金屬的音質，缺乏雄勁。然而由於它的音調變化多，許多作曲家發現對於親切的室內樂是一種得體的樂器。
The harpsichord with its bright, vigorous tone was the favorite instrument for supporting the bass of the smallorchestra of the period and for concert use, but the character of the tone could not be varied save bymechanical or structural devices.
人們最喜歡用具備明快有力音調的撥絃古鋼琴來配合當時小型管弦樂團的低音樂器以及在演奏會上演奏。但它的音調難以變化，除非使用機械或構件裝置。
The piano was perfected in the early eighteenth century by a harpsichord maker in Italy***though musicologistspoint out several previous instances of the instrument***.This instrument was called a piano e forte ***soft and loud***, to indicate its dynamic versatility; its strings were struck by a recoiling hammer with a felt-padded head.
18世紀早期的義大利，鋼琴在一位撥琴鋼琴製造者手中得到完善***儘管音樂理論家們指出有更早的例子***。 這種樂器被稱為piano e forte***義大利語，柔和而響亮的***，以顯示它有力的多樣性。 演奏者用一個頭部帶皮氈的彈擊樂錘敲擊琴絃。
The wires were much heavier in the earlier instruments. A series of mechanical improvements continuing well into the nineteenth century, including the introduction of pedals to sustain tone or to soften it, the perfection of a metal frame, and steel wire of the finest quality, finally produced an instrument capable of myriad tonal effects from the most delicate harmonies to an almost orchestral fullness of sound, from a liquid, singing tone to a sharp, percussive brilliance.
更早的這種樂器之上的金屬絲要重得多。從此，持續到19世紀的一系列機械上的改進，包括引入踏板以維持音調或使其柔和，改善金屬框架，以及使用最佳效能的鋼絲，最終產生了一種具備無數音調效果的樂器。這些效果涵蓋了從最精緻的和聲到幾乎全部的管絃樂音響，從明快流暢的吟唱的音調到尖銳的打擊樂器的清晰動人的恢巨集氣勢。
篇三
Changing Roles of Public Education
公共教育的角色變化
One of the most important social developments that helped to make possible a shift in thinking about the role of public education was the effect of the baby boom of the 1950's and 1960's on the schools.
一項重要的、有可能促使人們對公共教育的角色的看法發生轉變的社會發展是本世紀五六十年代的生育高峰對學校的影響。
In the 1920's, but especially in the Depression conditions of the 1930's, the United States experienced a declining birth rate -- every thousand women aged fifteen to forty-four gave birth to about 118 live children in 1920，89.2 in 1930，75.8 in 1936, and 80 in 1940. With the growing prosperity brought on by the Second World War and the economic boom that followed it young people married and established households earlier and began to raise larger families than had their predecessors during the Depression. Birth rates rose to 102 per thousand in 1946, 106.2 in 1950, and 118 in 1955.
在20年代，尤其是在30年代後的大蕭條中，美國經歷了一次出生率的下降--1920年每千名年齡在15歲至45歲的婦女生下大約118個存活嬰兒，1930年89.2個，1936年75.8個，1940年80個。 隨著二戰帶來的持續繁榮以及隨之而來的經濟增長，年輕人比大蕭條中的同齡人更早地結婚成家，而且比前輩養育更大的家庭。 1946年出生率上升到102%，1950年達106%，1955年達118%。
Although economics was probably the most important determinant, it is not the only explanation for the baby boom. The increased value placed on the idea of the family also helps to explain this rise in birth rates.
對於生育高峰，經濟有可能是最重要的決定因素，但它並不是唯一的解釋。 不斷受到重視的家庭觀念也有助於解釋出生率的上升。
The baby boomers began streaming into the first grade by the mid 1940's and became a flood by 1950. The public school system suddenly found itself overtaxed. While the number of schoolchildren rose because of wartime and postwar conditions, these same conditions made the schools even less prepared to cope with the flood. The wartime economy meant that few new schools were built between 1940 and 1945. Moreover, during the war and in the boom times that followed, large numbers of teachers left their profession for better-paying jobs elsewhere in the economy.
到40年代中期為止，這些生育高峰出生的孩子們開始源源不斷地進入小學一年級。 到了1950年，就形成了一股洪流。 公共教育系統突然感到不堪重負了。由於戰時和戰後的狀況，使得學齡兒童人數增加，這些狀況使得學校面對這股洪流更加措手不及。 戰時經濟意味著在1940年到1950年間幾乎沒有建立新學校。 而且，在戰時和隨後的經濟增長時期，大量的教師離開崗位去別處從事報酬更為優厚的工作。
Therefore in the 1950's and 1960's, the baby boom hit an antiquated and inadequate school system. Consequently, the "custodial rhetoric"of the 1930's and early 1940's no longer made sense that is, keeping youths aged sixteen and older out of the labor market by keeping them in school could no longer be a high priority for an institution unable to find space and staff to teach younger children aged five to sixteen.
因此，在五六十年代，生育高峰衝擊著陳舊而不完備的學校體系。 這樣一來，30年代以及40年代早期，"監護理論"就不再有意義了。 也就是說，通過使16歲以上的年輕人留在學校不進入勞動力市場的做法再也不是教育機構的優先考慮了。 因為教育機構不再能找到場地和教師來教育那些更小的5-16歲的孩子。
With the baby boom, the focus of educators and of laymen interested in education inevitably turned toward the lower grades and back to basic academic skills and discipline. The system no longer had much interest in offering nontraditional, new, and extra services to older youths.
隨著生育高峰，教育者和圈外人士對教育的興趣和焦點，不可避免地轉向了更低的年級和基礎的學術技能和學科上。 這個系統不再有濃厚的興趣給較年長的年輕人提供非傳統的新式的和額外的服務。