關於初中生英語美文摘抄精選
在當今生活與經濟日益全球化的社會中,外國語已成為世界各國公民都必備的基本素質之一。英語作為國際化語言,它在世界交流與溝通之中的媒介作用也是越來越重要。小編整理了關於初中生英語美文,歡迎閱讀!
關於初中生英語美文:Scientific Theories
In science, a theory is a reasonable explanation of observed events that are related. A theory often involves an imaginary model that helps scientists picture the way an observed event could be produced. A good example of this is found in the kinetic molecular theory, in which gases are pictured as being made up of many small particles that are in constant motion.
A useful theory, in addition to explaining past observations, helps to predict events that have not as yet been observed. After a theory has been publicized, scientists design experiments to test the theory. If observations confirm the scientist’s predictions, the theory is supported. If observations do not confirm the predictions, the scientists must search further. There may be a fault in the experiment, or the theory may have to be revised or rejected.
Science involves imagination and creative thinking as well as collecting information and performing experiments. Facts by themselves are not science. As the mathematician Jules Henri Poincare said, “Science is built with facts just as a house is built with bricks, but a collection of facts cannot be called science any more than a pile of bricks can be called a house.”
Most scientists start an investigation by finding out what other scientists have learned about a particular problem. After known facts have been gathered, the scientist comes to the part of the investigation that requires considerable imagination. Possible solutions to the problem are formulated. These possible solutions are called hypotheses.
In a way, any hypothesis is a leap into the unknown. It extends the scientist’s thinking beyond the known facts. The scientist plans experiments, performs calculations, and makes observations to test hypotheses. Without hypothesis, further investigation lacks purpose and direction. When hypotheses are confirmed, they are incorporated into theories.
在科學中,理論是對所觀察到的相關事件的合理解釋。理論通常包含一個虛構的模型,
這個模型幫助科學家構想所觀察到的事件是如何發生的。分子運動理論便是我們能找到的一個很好的例子。
在這個理論中,氣體被描繪成由許多不斷運動的小顆粒組成。一個有用的理論,除了能夠解釋過去的觀測,還有助於預測那些未被觀測到的事件。一個理論公開
後,科學家們設計實驗來檢驗這個理論。如果觀察證實了科學家的預言,這個理論則得到了驗證。如果觀察不能證實科學家的預言,科學家就必須進一步的研究。
或許是實驗存在錯誤,或許是這個理論必須被修改或拋棄。科學家除了收集資訊和操作實驗外還需要想象能力和創/造性思維。事實本身並不是科學。
正如數學家喬斯?亨利?波恩克爾所說:"科學建立在事實之上,就像房子用磚砌成一樣。但事實的收集不能被稱作科學,就像一堆磚不能被叫作房子一樣。
"多數科學家通過找出別的科學家在一個特定問題上的所知來開始研究。在收集了已知事實之後,科學家開始了研究中需要相當想像力的部分。他們爾後擬訂
對這個問題的可行的解決方法。這些可行的解決方式被稱為假設。在某種意義上,任何假
設都是向未知的跳躍。它使科學家的思維超越已知事實。科學家計劃實驗、計算、觀測以檢驗假定。若沒有假設,進一步的研究便缺乏目的和方向。
當假設被證實了,就成為理論的一部分。
關於初中生英語美文:Telecommuting
Telecommuting-- substituting the computer for the trip to the job ----has been hailed as a solution to all kinds of problems related to office work.
For workers it promises freedom from the office, less time wasted in traffic, and help with child-care conflicts. For management, telecommuting helps keep high performers on board, minimizes tardiness and absenteeism by eliminating commutes, allows periods of solitude for high-concentration tasks, and provides scheduling flexibility. In some areas, such as Southern California and Seattle, Washington, local governments are encouraging companies to start telecommuting programs in order to reduce rush-hour congestion and improve air quality.
But these benefits do not come easily. Making a telecommuting program work requires careful planning and an understanding of the differences between telecommuting realities and popular images.
Many workers are seduced by rosy illusions of life as a telecommuter. A computer programmer from New York City moves to the tranquil Adirondack Mountains and stays in contact with her office via computer. A manager comes in to his office three days a week and works at home the other two. An accountant stays home to care for her sick child; she hooks up her telephone modern connections and does office work between calls to the doctor.
These are powerful images, but they are a limited reflection of reality. Telecommuting workers soon learn that it is almost impossible to concentrate on work and care for a young child at the same time. Before a certain age, young children cannot recognize, much less respect, the necessary boundaries between work and family. Additional child support is necessary if the parent is to get any work done.
Management too must separate the myth from the reality. Although the media has paid a great deal of attention to telecommuting in most cases it is the employee’s situation, not the availability of technology that precipitates a telecommuting arrangement.
That is partly why, despite the widespread press coverage, the number of companies with work-at-home programs or policy guidelines remains small.
電子交通--用電腦取代上班的往返--作為對各種各樣的辦公室工作問題的解決辦法已受到了歡迎。
對工作者來說,它承諾不受辦公室的約束,更少的時間浪費在交通上和有助於解決照看小孩的矛盾。
對管理者來說,電子交通有助於挽留高效率的工作者,通過省去辦公室與家之間的來回往返,大大減少工作拖拉和曠工,給予管理者獨處的時間來完成需要高
度集中精神的任務,為管理者提供靈活的時間安排。在一些地區,如南加利福尼亞和西雅
圖、華盛頓,地方政府鼓勵公司開始電子交通計劃以減少交通高峰時的塞車和提高空氣質量。但這些益處也來之不易。
要使電子交通成功需要仔細的計劃並且理解電子交通的現實狀況和流行的想象之間的區別。許多工作者被電子交通的美好幻想所迷惑。一位電腦程式設計
員從紐約市搬到了寧靜的阿第倫達克山,用電腦保持與她辦公室之間的聯絡。一位經理一
週三天到辦公室,其他兩天在家工作;一位會計師在家照顧她生病的孩子,接通電話調變解調器的接頭,在同醫生通話之餘完成辦公室工作。
這些是很有震撼力的情景,但也是對現實有限的反映。電子交通者很快發現在同一時間專注工作和照看小孩幾乎是不可能的。在
某個年齡之前,小孩子不可能意識到,更不可能尊重工作與家庭之間的界限。如果家長要完成工作,就必須另外照看小孩。管理階層必須把現實同神話分開。
雖然傳媒對電子交通投入了極大的關注,但在很大程度上,是員工的實際情況而不是技術的可能性促成電子交通的安排。
這就是為什麼儘管有廣泛的報導,具有在家工作專案或行動綱領的公司數目依然很少的部分原因。
關於初中生英語美文:The origin of Refrigerators
By the mid-nineteenth century, the term “icebox” had entered the American language, but ice was still only beginning to affect the diet of ordinary citizens in the United States. The ice trade grew with the growth of cities. Ice was used in hotels, taverns, and hospitals, and by some forward-looking city dealers in fresh meat, fresh fish, and butter. After the Civil War*** 1861-1865***,as ice was used to refrigerate freight cars, it also came into household use. Even before 1880,half of the ice sold in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and one-third of that sold in Boston and Chicago, went to families for their own use. This had become possible because a new household convenience, the icebox, a precursor of the modern refrigerator, had been invented.
Making an efficient icebox was not as easy as we might now suppose. In the early nineteenth century, the knowledge of the physics of heat, which was essential to a science of refrigeration, was rudimentary. The commonsense notion that the best icebox was one that prevented the ice from melting was of course mistaken, for it was the melting of the ice that performed the cooling. Nevertheless, early efforts to economize ice included wrapping up the ice in blankets, which kept the ice from doing its job. Not until near the end of the nineteenth century did inventors achieve the delicate balance of insulation and circulation needed for an efficient icebox.
But as early as 1803, and ingenious Maryland farmer, Thomas Moore, had been on the right track. He owned a farm about twenty miles outside the city of Washington, for which the village of Georgetown was the market center. When he used an icebox of his own design to transport his butter to market, he found that customers would pass up the rapidly melting stuff in the tubs of his competitors to pay a premium price for his butter, still fresh and hard in neat, one-pound bricks. One advantage of his icebox, Moore explained, was that farmers would no longer have to travel to market at night in order to keep their produce cool.
冰箱的由來
直到19世紀中期,"冰箱"這個名詞才進入了美國語言,但冰僅僅只是開始影響美國普通市民的飲食。冰的買賣隨著城市的發展而發展。
冰被用在旅館、酒館、醫院以及被一些有眼光的城市商人用於肉、魚和黃油的保鮮。內戰***1861-1865***之後,冰被用於冷藏貨車,同時也進入了民用。
甚至在1880年前,半數在紐約、費城和巴爾的摩銷售的冰,三分之一
在波士頓和芝加哥銷售的冰進入家庭使用,因為一種新的家庭裝置,冰箱,即現代冰箱的前身,被髮明瞭。製造一臺有效率的冰箱不像我們想象的那麼簡單。
19世紀早期,關於對冷藏科學至關重要的熱物理知識是很淺陋的。認為最好的冰箱應該防止冰的融化這樣一個
普遍的觀點顯然是錯誤的,因為正是冰的融化起了製冷作用。早期為節省冰的努力,包括用毯子把冰包起來,使得冰不能發揮它的作用。直到近19
世紀末,發明家們才成功地找到有效率的冰箱所需要的精確的隔熱和迴圈的精確平衡。但早在1803年,一位有發明天才的
馬里蘭農場主,托馬斯?莫爾,找到了正確方法。他擁有一個農場,離華盛頓約20英里,那裡的喬治鎮村莊是集市中心。
當他用自己設計的冰箱運送黃油去市場時,他發現顧客們會走過裝在競爭者桶裡那些迅速融化的黃油而給他比市價更高的價格買他仍然新鮮堅硬,整
齊地切成一磅一塊的黃油。莫爾說他的冰箱的一個好處是使得農民們不必在夜裡上路去市場以保持他們產品的低溫。