-
练习
1
London ends 2012 Olympic Games with a
British-centric musical bang
By Anthony
Faiola, Published: August 13
LONDON
—
The
XXX
Olympiad
ended
Sunday
with
a
blowout
of
British
pop
and
circumstance, a closing-ceremony-cum-
after-party offering a final dose of eccentricity
to 17 days
that saw the rise of girl
power in sports, the coupling of Olympic solemnity
with English humor
and a wave of
euphoria in a host nation that seemed to
rediscover the “great” in Great
Britain.
Like the Who
谁人乐队
and the
Spice Girls on Sunday, Britons reunited over the
course of
these Games, showing the kind
of feverish patriotism infrequently seen on this
side of the Atlantic.
Big
Ben
chimed
to
mark
the
beginning
of
the
end
inside
the
Olympic
Stadium,
where
the
wonderwall of
music
（音乐下载网站）
included a virtual Freddie Mercury and
a jolly postscript
echoing
Monty
Python(
英国六人戏剧团体
):
“Always
Look
on
the
Bright
Side
of
Life.”
Four
years after the militant efficiency of
Beijing 2008, George Michael
crooned
哼唱
“Freedom 90,”
an impromptu
anthem for the
irreverent
玩世不恭的
London Games. “We Will Rock You,” the
British promised. And with surprisingly
few major gaffes
出丑
, they
did.
The group Madness sang “Our
House,” and that’s what these Olympics were.
Britain threw a
party for the world,
but, first and foremost, for itself.
The
Games
were
strewn
with
references
to
Britishness,
some
obscure
and
some
not
—
organizers
crammed
the
world’s
athletes
onto
a
stage
cut
in
the
form
of
a
Union
Jack
at
the
Closing
Ceremonies. If we had a good time, it was because
we were along for the ride.
Urged
on
by
massive
home
crowds
and
a
cheerleading
press
that
defied
predictions
of
Olympic cynicism, British athletes ran,
cycled and rowed their way to their highest medal
count
since Britannia ruled the seas in
1908.
练习
2
九月新生进校，我又看见了许多父母的脸。
< br>送儿女来上学的以父亲居多，
有些是父母同来。
父母们本
来千差万别的脸，
个人化特
征在此时得到淡化而呈现出相同的气
质：
劳碌，疲惫，初到异地的怯懦和谨慎，以及其情
甚殷，惟恐
儿女吃亏的心态。
那样长而累人的旅途，
那样繁琐耗人的手续，
太能够磨蚀人的锐气(élan)了。
十八岁的
孩子，少年得志的喜悦与轻狂，下车起就一点点没了。跟在父母身后，满校园
地跑，每办一
项手续都得走很多路，问很多人，父母到处陪着笑脸。
练习
3
A Journey
by Train: Making Tracks in Europe
Everyone is hurrying and straining to
be somewhere else. But my wiry little organ
grinder
pours his heart into bringing
this corner alive with his music. Old favorite
songs dance gaily above
our
heads
—“Can
Can”,
“Lara’s
Theme”,
“
Funiculi
-Fun
icula”
---these
popular
songs
from
past
decades
have a European father than an American flavor.
Amazingly, a furry cat is fast asleep
on top of the music machine, ignoring everything
around
it as if this was some peaceful
garden rather than a precarious perch that shakes
with every turn of
its
owner’s
arm.
And
in
a
basket
by
the
organ’s
pram
wheels,
a
dog
dreams
peacefully
while
commuters pour out from an underground
station.
My organ grinder has
discovered the miracle of perpetual motion. Round
and round goes his
arm, his body
rocking to the effort. Casually he transfers the
handle from one hand to the other,
catching it as it twirls, the music
leaping around him as if it would whisk him and
his machine
over the rooftops and away
past Notre Dame Cathedral or along the Champs
Elysees.
Mind you, he’s not the only
one presiding over this noisy corner. Two police
officers are here
as well, charged with
maintaining order. One is male, youthful and
confident. The other is…well,
a police
girl. Her gun is almost as big as she is. Her
weapon belt sags on her hips. Maybe in a
couple of years she’ll develop into a
police
-
woman, but it’ll take
at least that long to grow into her
official-issue trousers.
But,
petite
as
she
is,
this
Parisienne
carries
with
her
all
the
authority
of
the
French
gendarmerie. The traffic at the corner
is clogging up
—
as it does
repeatedly during my half-hour
here.
Boldly she blows her whistle and strides out into
the surge of traffic. Angry cars growl to a
halt and sullenly crouch at her feet,
snarling their annoyance, fretting to be away.
But, cowed by
her tiny arm they bite
back their frustration and wait till this
uniformed child waves them on.
练习
4
近
些年来，
我们在环境保护和生态建设方面付出了前所未有的努力。
“
十一五
”
期间，
< br>国
家大力推进节能减排，
二氧化硫等空气污染物排放明显
下降。
但是这一成绩远不足以令人乐
观。连日来浓雾重锁的城市
污染再次警醒我们：随着经济发展的快速向前，
工业化、城镇化
还将持续，能源消耗不断增加，空气污染防治依然面临巨大挑战。
“
牵着你的手，却看不见你
”
不是
美丽中国，
“
厚德载雾，自强不吸
”<
/p>
不是全面小康。经济
发展再也不能走先污染后治理的老路，
城市管理再也不能以
“
空气不好是小事
”
心态来应对突
发情况，
居民生活再也不能只图自己方便、
不管环境负担。
只有形成
节约资源和保护环境的
空间格局、产业结构、生产方式、生活方式，从源头上扭转生态环
境恶化趋势，我们才可能
拥有天蓝、地绿、水净、风清的美好家园。
练习
5
Twins
E. B.
White
On a warm, miserable
morning last week we went up to the Bronx Zoo to
see the moose calf
(
小麋鹿
)
and
to
break
in
a
new
pair
of
black
shoes.
We
encountered
better
luck
than
we
had
bargained for. The cow
moose and her young one were standing near the
wall of the deer park
below the monkey
house, and in order to get a better view we
strolled down to the lower end of
the
park, by the brook. The path there is not much
travelled. As we approached the corner where
the brook trickles under the wire
fence, we noticed a red deer getting to her feet.
Beside her, on
legs that were just
learning their business, was a spotted fawn, as
small and perfect as a trinket
seen
through
a
reducing
glass.
They
stood
there,
mother
and
child,
under
a
gray
beech
whose
trunk
was engraved with dozens of hearts and initials.
Stretched on the ground was another fawn,
and we realized that the doe had just
finished twinning. The second fawn was still wet,
still un-
risen.
Here
was
a
scene
of
rare
sylvan
splendor,
in
one
of
our
five
favorite
boroughs,
and
we
couldn’t
have asked for more. Even our new shoes seemed to
be working out all right and weren’t
hurting much.
The doe was
only a couple of feet from the wire, and we sat
down on a rock at the edge of the
footpath
to
see
what
sort
of
start
young
fawns
get
in
the
deep
fastnesses
of
Mittel
Bronx.
The
mother,
mildly
resentful
of
our
presence
and
dazed
from
her
labor,
raised
one
forefoot
and
stamped primly. Then she lowered her
head, picked up the afterbirth, and began
dutifully to eat it,
allowing
it
to
swing
crazily
from
her
mouth,
as
though
it
were
a
bunch
of
dried
grass.
As
we
watched, the sun broke weakly through,
brightened the rich red
of the fawns,
and kindled their
white spots.
Occasionally a sightseer would appear and wander
aimlessly by, but of all who passed
none was aware that anything
extraordinary had occurred. “Looka the kangaroos!”
a child cried.
And he and his mother
stared sullenly at the deer and then walked on.
In a few moments the second twin
gathered all his legs and all his ingenuity and
arose, to
stand for the first time
sniffing the mysteries of a park for captive deer.
The doe, in recognition of
his
achievement, quit her other work and began to dry
him, running her tongue against the grain
and
paying
particular
attention
to
the
key
points.
Meanwhile
the
first
fawn
tiptoed
toward
the
shallow brook, in little
stops and goes, and started across. He paused
midstream to make a slight
contribution,
as
a
child
does
in
bathing.
Then,
while
his
mother
watched,
he
continued
across,
gained the other side, selected a
hiding place, and lay down under a skunk-cabbage
leaf next to the
fence,
in
perfect
concealment,
his
legs
folded
neatly
under
him.
Without
actually
going
out
of
sight, he had managed to disappear
completely in the shifting light and shade. From
somewhere a
long
way
off
a
twelve-
o’clock
whistle
sounded.
We
hung
around
awhile,
but
he
never
budged.
Before we left, we crossed the brook
ourselves, just outside the fence, knelt, reached
through the
wire, and tested the truth
of what we had once heard: that you can scratch a
new fawn between the
ears without
starting him. You can indeed.