英语四级文章阅读

2017-02-26

阅读理解是英语专业四级考试中的一项重要测试内容,要求学生能够运用阅读技能从阅读语境中准确获取信息和推导语篇意义。下面是小编带来的英语四级文章阅读,欢迎阅读!

英语四级文章阅读1

Economy Will Drive Workout Habits

省钱健身新趋势

Money or the lack of it, changes everything, and that includes how people will be working out in 2010.

有钱或者没钱能够改变一切,这其中包括在2010年人们锻炼身体的方式。

(1) In these belt -tightening times, cost-conscious workouts at home and at the gym topped the list of fitness trends for this year in a survey, followed by shorter, more time-efficient regimens, such as boot camp and circuit training.

(1)一项针对今年健身流行趋势的调查显示,在当下需要勒紧裤腰带过日子的时期,人们将在家和健身房用省钱的方法健身列为首选,其次是强力瘦身训练和循环训练这种更省时间的强化锻炼方式。

"People are looking for ways to accomplish as much as possible with as little time and money as necessary," said Cedric Bryant, chief science officer of the American Council on Exercise (ACE), which conducted the online poll of fitness professionals.

美国锻炼协会对健身领域的专业人士开展了这一在线调查。该协会的科技总监塞德里克·布莱恩特说:“人们希望能尽量少花时间、少花钱,达到最好的效果。”

"Last year "budget-conscious" was on the list but this year the majority of the respondents put it as one of the top," he added.

他说:“去年,‘预算’被列为需要考虑的因素,但今年大部分受访者将其列为最重要的考虑因素之一。”

Bryant said some 600 ACE-certified fitness professionals responded to the annual poll, which the non-profit organization has been conducting for a decade.

布莱恩特说,约600名经美国锻炼协会认证的专业人士参与了这一年度调查。这一非盈利机构开展该调查已有10年的历史。

Other money-saving measures, such as the shift from personal training sessions to small group training classes and in-home workouts using smaller, more portable equipment, also made the list.

受访者列出的其他省钱办法包括从私教课程转为集体课,以及使用更小更便携的器材在家锻炼等。

"Personal trainers are seeing they've got to respond to market needs. Working with two to four clients at a time they can charge less but still get their hourly fee," Bryant said.

布莱恩特说:“私人教练觉得必须跟上市场形势。他们可以一次同时辅导2-4个客户,这样可以降低收费,但仍可以保证收入。”

(2) Boot-camp workouts and circuit training, both of which burn calories while building strength and endurance, will be among the most popular trends in 2010, as time-constrained consumers seek shorter, more intense regimens.

(2)由于人们时间紧迫,耗时少、强度大的健身方式更受青睐,2010年最受欢迎的健身项目将是强力瘦身训练和循环训练,这两种方式既可以燃烧脂肪,又可以增强力量和耐力。

One bright spot is the rise of exergaming-type systems, like Nintendo's Wii Sports, Wii Fit and the PC-based Dancetown. Bryant says the fitness-based video games are turning up in health clubs and senior centers.

健身游戏的兴起成为其中的一个亮点,如任天堂的Wii运动游戏、Wii Fit平衡板和需在电脑上使用的Dancetown游戏。布莱恩、特说,健身类视频游戏越来越多地出现在健康俱乐部和老人中心。

Functional training workouts, which are geared to improving the quality of life and the ability to perform everyday tasks, will remain strong, and the use of computerized tracking and online training and scheduling tools will increase in the coming year.

以功能性训练为目的的健身将继续保持强劲势头,这种锻炼方式主要是为了提高生活质量和完成日常工作的能力,此外,计算机眼踪、在线训练和排程工具的使用在来年也会增加。

英语四级文章阅读2

Checking International Airline's Safety

如何查看国际航班安全

You can check fares, fees and flight schedules for just about any airline in the world with a few keystrokes or a single phone call. But checking the safety of an international airline is a much more complicated task.

如果你想查看世界上任何航空公司的票价、收费以及航班安排,只需点击几下鼠标或者打个电话就行。但是,如果你想知道某个国际航空公司的安全系数,那可要复杂得多。

(1) European and US regulators evaluate aviation safety, and the airline industry itself has a world-wide safety-audit program, but it's difficult for travelers to check airline safety when buying tickets. There's no restaurant-inspector's score posted on the airplane door or government crash-test star rating printed on your ticket.

(1)欧洲和美国的监管机构都会评估航空公司的安全性,航空业本身也有一套全球安全审查系统,但是,旅客在购买机票的时候很难了解到航空公司的安全性。机舱门口可没有贴着类似餐馆检验机构评分的东西,旅客的机票上也没有印着政府失事概率测试的星级评级。

That's unfortunate, since interest in airline safety is high. (2) It's been a bad year for aviation fatalities, with more than 700 people killed in 16 crashes around the world so far in 2009. Many involved little-known airlines---some already on watch lists for safety concerns.

这是一个很不幸的事实,因为大众对航空公司安全性的关注度非常高。(2)2009年是航空灾难记录非常糟糕的一年,全球共发生飞机失事事故16起,超过700人死亡。许多事故都与名不见经传的航空公司有关,其中一些因其安全顾虑已经被列入观察名单。

"There's no perfect solution at the moment, but it's undoubtedly getting better," said Geoff Want, principal adviser on airline safety at Rio Tinto Group, a global mining company that has its own list of carriers approved for employee travel.

矿业公司力拓集团负责航空安全的主管顾问杰夫·华恩特表示,目前还没有完美的解决办法,但是情况无疑正在好转。力拓集团有一份航空公司名单,员工旅行只选择这个名单上航空公司的航班。

Government regulators in Europe and the US take different approaches to aviation safety.

欧洲和美国的政府监管部门对航空安全则采取了不同的方式。

The European Union evaluates airlines and their planes and publishes a "blacklist" of unacceptable carriers, most recently updated just two weeks ago. The EU blacklist is available on the Internet at ec.europa.eu/transport/(click on "Air," then "List of airlines banned within the EU")

欧盟会对航空公司及其机队进行评估,并会发布一个不合格的航空公司的"黑名单",就在两周前刚刚更新过一次。欧盟的黑名单可以通过互联网在ec.europa.eu/transport/上查到(点击“航空”,接着就是“欧盟禁飞的航空公司名单”)。

Be prepared, it's long and complex: 233 airlines are completely banned, and eight are allowed to operate under restrictions and conditions. (3) Though its focus started as an airline-by-airline evaluation, the EU has moved more toward building the blacklist on evaluations of entire countries -all airlines from 15 countries have a blanket ban from the EU and are among the 233 cited.

不过要有心理准备,这个名单很长,也很复杂:共有233家航空公司被完全禁飞,八家航空公司被允许在某些限制和条件下飞行。(3)虽然欧盟的关注点开始是对航空公司逐个进行评估,但是欧盟近来已经更多地通过对整个国家的评估来构建黑名单一→其中有15个国家的所有航空公司收到的都是欧盟的全面禁令,它们也在上述233家航空公司之列。

The US Federal Aviation Administration evaluates countries, not carriers. US inspectors decide if a country's aviation infrastructure is up to snuff by counting the number of inspectors watching over airlines, assessing air-traffic-control procedures and evaluating funding and legal authority of aviation regulators. The FAA evaluation is based largely on standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization, a United Nations-chartered group. (US airlines are required to meet or exceed international safety standards.)

美国航空管理局评估的对象是各个国家、而不是航空公司。美国监管机构通过计算航空业监管机构配备的人员数量、评估航空运输量的控制流程以及航空监管机构的融资和法律权限,来决定一个国家的航空业是否会进入“黑名单”。美国联邦航空管理局的评估大多数基于联合国下属专门机构国际民用航空组织制定的标准(美国航空公司必须达到或者超过国际安全标准)。

The FAA says 101 countries have been assessed; 79 have Category 1 status, meaning the US believes the country meets international standards, and 22 fall into Category 2. Category 2 doesn't mean airlines from that country are banned, only that any new service and airline passenger-sharing ties are frozen. That can have economic impact on a country and its airlines, and the threat of a Category 2 downgrade can prompt improvement.

美国航空管理局表示,已经对101个国家进行了评估179个国家为一类,表示美国认为这些国家已经达到国际安全标准;22个国家为二类。二类并不表示来自这些国家的航空公司会被禁飞,只是说明任何新服务和航空公司乘客分享关系将被冻结。这会对一个国家及其航空公司产生经济影响,而二类国家会面临降级的威胁,这可以促使航空公司改善其安全性。

An FAA spokeswoman says its International Aviation Safety Assessments list, is "one tool a consumer can use to decide on air travel."

美国航空管理局一位发言人表示,其国际航空安全评估名单可以在上找到,这是“消费者可以用来决定航空旅行选择的一个工具”。

There's surprisingly little overlap between the FAA and EU lists. Airlines from Angola, Benin, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Liberia, Gabon, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Rwanda and Zambia are banned on the EU blacklist, but those countries aren't evaluated at all by the FAA. B0th EU and US regulators share concerns on Congo, Indonesia and Swaziland. The FAA rates Zimbabwe, Israel, the Philippines, Serbia and Montenegro plus several Latin American and Caribbean nations, including Belize, Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua, in Category 2, but not the EU.

出人意料的是,美国航空管理局和欧盟的名单很少有重合。来自安哥拉、贝宁、哈萨克斯坦、吉尔吉斯、利比亚、加莲、塞拉利昂、苏丹、阿富汗、柬埔寨、卢旺达和赞比亚的航空公司都在欧盟禁飞名单之上,但是这些国家甚至都没有被美国航空管理局评估过。欧盟和美国的监管机构都对刚果、印度尼西亚和史瓦济兰的航空公司表示顾虑。美国航空管理局将赞比亚、以色列、菲律宾、塞尔维亚和黑山,还有几个拉美和加勒比海国家,包括伯利兹、海地、洪都拉斯和尼加拉瓜,列为二类国家,但是欧盟并未对国家有类似的评级。

The airline industry has come up with its own list of sorts, and it can be useful to travelers. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the industry's world-wide trade group, began working on a standard auditing regimen nine years ago, and it has evolved into an extensive safety check now required of all airlines to be a member of IATA. Passing the audit became mandatory for membership earlier this year; 21 airlines didn't and were removed.

航空业也有自己林林总总的名单,可能会对旅客有所帮助。航空业的全球行业团体国际航空运输协会(International Air Transport Association,简称IATA)早在9年前就开始着手安全标准审查工作,现在已经演变为一个覆盖范围很大的安全检查体系,凡是IATA的成员航空公司都要遵照执行。今年年初,通过安全标准审查已经是IATA成员的必备条件;有21家没有通过安全标准审查的航空公司已被除名。

IATA says 330 airlines around the world have passed its audit. Of those, 230 are IATA members-another 100 airlines wanted to be certified even if not IATA members. (4) US and EU regulators accept IOSA certification to meet requirements that airlines funneling passengers to each other through code-sharing agreements audit each other for safety issues. And a few countries -Egypt is one -require IOSA certifìcation for any airline flying there. IATA表示,全球有330家航空公司已经通过其安全标准审查。其中230家为

IATA成员,另外 100家航空公司在即便还不是IATA成员的情况下也希望获得认证。(4)美国和欧盟的监管机构均接受IOSA认证,满足通过代码共享协议互相提供客源的航空公司必须就安全问题互相审查的要求。有少数几个国家——包括埃及,要求任何飞往该国的航空公司均要通过IOSA认证。旅客可以在找到相关名单。

英语四级文章阅读3

When the Kids' Favorite Toy Is Daddy's iPhone

何时老爸手机成了儿童玩具了

Yesterday, my toddler broke another toy. But this wasn't an inexpensive, plastic doo-dad. It was my husband's iPhone.

昨天,我家宝宝又弄坏了一个玩具。但这可不是便宜的塑料小玩意儿。那是我丈夫的iPhone手机。

Like many parents these days, my husband and I sometimes band over our smartphones to our son to soothe him or keep him entertained. It's partly laziness on our party---no other toy, it seems, can captivate him like the iPhone or BlackBerry. He's fascinated by the buttons and touchscreen, the sounds and lights. He hold it up to his ear and pretends he's making an important business call (or arranging a playdate with his best friend.) He somehow even managed to reprogram my BlackBerry to autotype in the Catalan language.

跟当前的许多父母一样,我们两口子有时会把自己的智能手机给儿子玩,以此来哄他或者逗他。在我们来说这样做一部分是因为懒——似乎没有别的玩具能像iPhone或黑莓一样让他着迷。他被手机上的按键、触摸屏和声光深深吸引。他将手机举在耳边,假装在打一个重要的商业电话(或是跟好朋友约好一起去玩)。他甚至还不知怎么将我的黑莓手机调成了加泰罗尼亚语的输入模式。

(1) When we take away the BlackBerry or iPhone he wails; no other plaything even a pretty realistic toy cellphone satisfies him as much. (The marketing copy for the toy phone says "This authentic looking play phone will surely distract your child from getting a hold of your cell phone!" Ha! I wish.)

(1)要是我们拿走黑莓或者iPhone,他就会大哭;别的任何玩具都没法像手机一样满足他,即便是相当逼真的玩具手机也不例外。(这个玩具手机的宣传页上写着“这部看上去跟真的一模一样的玩具手机肯定能转移孩子的注意力,让他们不再染指你的手机!”哈!但愿如此。)

We often hide our phones-we don't want him to ruin them or grow too dependent on them but be almost always tracks them down once he hears the ring or the buzz of an incoming message. (Hiding a phone is tough, however, for those parents who need to have phones handy in case they're on call or the office beckons.) (2) And when we pick up the phone or check messages, that only makes our son want the phone more, since he always wants whatever is in our hands.

我们常常将于机藏起来,不想让他给弄坏了或是对手机太过依赖,但只要他听到铃声或信息提示音,他总能找到。(但有些父母需要将手机放在手边以备随时待命或公司有事,在这样的情况下很难藏起手机。)(2)而当我们接电话或是查看信息时,小家伙只会更想拿到手机,因为我们手里不管拿着什么他都想要。

Invariably, my son sticks the phone in his mouth and it ends up slobbery and pocked with bitemarks. Or when be eventually tires of the phone, he'll toss it aside, which is how my husband's iPhone met its recent doom.

我儿子无可避免地会将手机放进嘴里,最后手机上就会沾满了口水,还满是牙印。或者等他终于玩腻了,他就会将手机乱扔,我丈夫的iPhone不久前就是这样惨遭不幸的。

We're not alone in using our cellphones as high-tech rattles. (3) The AP recently ran a story on how more parents are downloading kid-friendly apps, such as white noise and rattle sounds and easy video games, to their cellphones. And according to a recent NPR report, one parent to encourage his 11-month-old baby to crawl, waves his Blackberry so the baby will crawl toward the gadget.

拿手机当高科技玩具的并不是只有我们两个。(3)美联社(AP)不久前的一篇报道称,越来越多的父母往手机里下载适合孩子的应用程序,比如白噪音和铃鼓的声音,还有简单的视频游戏。美国国家公共电台(NPR)最近的一则报道说,一位父亲为了鼓励11个月大的孩子爬,就挥动他的黑莓手机,这样孩子就会朝手机那边爬去。

Readers, do you ever resort to handing over your smartphones to your kids? Any horror stories? Any good kid-friendly apps to recommend?

读者们,你们有没有拿手机当玩具哄过孩子?有没有什么惨痛的故事?有什么适合孩子的应用程序可以推荐吗?

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