新概念英语二册短文_大学新概念英语精美短文（二）

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【篇一】Piano 钢琴

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.

钢琴的家系可以追溯至15至16世纪早期的键盘乐器，包括小型拨弦琴、洋琴和维金娜琴。17世纪时风琴、敲弦琴和拨弦琴成为键盘乐器类的主要成员。这种至高无上的地位一直为它们所保持，直到18世纪末期钢琴将它们取代。

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.

敲弦古钢琴的音调有金属的音质，缺乏雄劲。然而由于它的音调变化多，许多作曲家发现对于亲切的室内乐是一种得体的乐器。

The harpsichord with its bright, vigorous tone was the favorite instrument for supporting the bass of the small orchestra of the period and for concert use, but the character of the tone could not be varied save by mechanical or structural devices.

人们zui喜欢用具备明快有力音调的拨弦古钢琴来配合当时小型管弦乐团的低音乐器以及在演奏会上演奏。但它的音调难以变化，除非使用机械或构件装置。

The piano was perfected in the early eighteenth century by a harpsichord maker in Italy(though musicologists point 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世纪早期的意大利，钢琴在一位拨琴钢琴制造者手中得到完善（尽管音乐理论家们指出有更早的例子）。 这种乐器被称为piano e forte（意大利语，柔和而响亮的），以显示它有力的多样性。 演奏者用一个头部带皮毡的弹击乐锤敲击琴弦。

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.

更早的这种乐器之上的金属丝要重得多。从此，持续到19世纪的一系列机械上的改进，包括引入踏板以维持音调或使其柔和，改善金属框架，以及使用zui佳性能的钢丝，zui终产生了一种具备无数音调效果的乐器。这些效果涵盖了从zui精致的和声到几乎全部的管弦乐音响，从明快流畅的吟唱的音调到尖锐的打击乐器的清晰动人的恢宏气势。

【篇二】Changing Roles of Public Education  公共教育的角色变化

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.

一项重要的、有可能促使人们对公共教育的角色的看法发生转变的社会发展是本世纪五六十年代的生育高峰对学校的影响。

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年代后的大萧条中，美国经历了一次出生率的下降--1920年每千名年龄在15岁至45岁的妇女生下大约118个存活婴儿，1930年89.2个，1936年75.8个，1940年80个。 随着二战带来的持续繁荣以及随之而来的经济增长，年轻人比大萧条中的同龄人更早地结婚成家，而且比前辈养育更大的家庭。 1946年出生率上升到102%，1950年达106%，1955年达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.

对于生育高峰，经济有可能是zui重要的决定因素，但它并不是的解释。 不断受到重视的家庭观念也有助于解释出生率的上升。

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年代中期为止，这些生育高峰出生的孩子们开始源源不断地进入小学一年级。 到了1950年，就形成了一股洪流。 公共教育系统突然感到不堪重负了。由于战时和战后的状况，使得学龄儿童人数增加，这些状况使得学校面对这股洪流更加措手不及。 战时经济意味着在1940年到1950年间几乎没有建立新学校。 而且，在战时和随后的经济增长时期，大量的教师离开岗位去别处从事报酬更为优厚的工作。

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，生育高峰冲击着陈旧而不完备的学校体系。 这样一来，30年代以及40年代早期，"监护理论"就不再有意义了。 也就是说，通过使16岁以上的年轻人留在学校不进入劳动力市场的做法再也不是教育机构的优先考虑了。 因为教育机构不再能找到场地和教师来教育那些更小的5-16岁的孩子。

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.

随着生育高峰，教育者和圈外人士对教育的兴趣和焦点，不可避免地转向了更低的年级和基础的学术技能和学科上。 这个系统不再有浓厚的兴趣给较年长的年轻人提供非传统的新式的和额外的服务。

【篇三】Cells and Temperature  细胞与温度

Cells cannot remain alive outside certain limits of temperature, and much narrower limits mark the boundaries of effective functioning.

细胞只能在一定的温度范围内存活，而进一步保证它们有效工作的温度范围就更小了。

Enzyme systems of mammals and birds are most efficient only within a narrow range around 37℃; a departure of a few degrees from this value seriously impairs their functioning. Even though cells can survive wider fluctuations, the integrated actions of bodily systems are impaired. Other animals have a wider tolerance for changes of bodily temperature.

哺乳动物和鸟类的酶系统只能在37℃左右的很小范围内才能有效工作。与此相差仅几度的温度都会大大削弱它们的工作效率。尽管温度变化更大时细胞仍能存活，但机体系统的整体运行能力却被削弱了。其它动物对体温的变化有更强的适应性。

For centuries it has been recognized that mammals and birds differ from other animals in the way they regulate body temperature. Ways of characterizing the difference have become more accurate and meaningful over time, but popular terminology still reflects the old division into "warm blooded" and "cold blooded" species; warm-blooded included mammals and birds whereas all other creatures were considered cold-blooded. As more species were studied, it became evident that this classification was inadequate. A fence lizard or a desert iguana -- each cold-blooded -- usually has a body temperature only a degree or two below that of humans and so is not cold.

几个世纪以来，人们就认识到哺乳动物和鸟类调节体温的方式与其它动物不同。随着时间的推移，人们对这种差异的描述越来越精确和有意义，但是“暖血动物”和“冷血动物”这一古老的分类方式至今仍在大众词汇中有所反映。暖血动物包括哺乳动物和鸟类，其它动物统统被视为冷血动物。但是对更多物种进行的研究表明这种分类显然是不适当的。美洲一种小型蜥蜴和沙漠鬣蜥同属冷血动物，但实际上它们的体温通常只比人类的体温低1-2度，因此并不是真正的冷血。

Therefore the next distinction was made between animals that maintain a constant body temperature, called homeotherms, and those whose body temperature varies with their environment, called poikilotherms. But this classification also proved inadequate, because among mammals there are many that vary their body temperatures during hibernation. Furthermore, many invertebrates that live in the depths of the ocean never experience changes in the chill of the deep water, and their body temperatures remain constant.

因此又出现了恒温动物（即保持恒定体温的动物）和变温动物（即体温随外界环境的变化而改变的动物）这一区分方式。但这种分类也不恰当。因为有不少哺乳动物在冬眠期间会改变体温，而许多生活在深海的无脊椎动物在寒冷的深海水域中体温并不变化，而是恒定的。

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