托福考试阅读材料

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托福考试阅读材料1

How clean is the average backyard pool is? Find out on this Moment of Science.

Everybody loves the swimming pool. But how clean is the water in the average backyard or public pool? If you trust (1)chlorine to take care of germs, you’re in for a surprise.

Chlorine and other (2)disinfectants do indeed help to clean the water, but some germs can survive in even the best-kept pool. For example, (3)cryptosporidium may live in pool water for several days. Crypto causes a (4)diarrheal illness and may (5)rinse off the bodies of infected people or (6)diapered children into the pool. If you swallow infected pool water, you may become sick.

Other germs may live for a few minutes or a few hours in a chlorinated pool: Giardia(鞭毛虫), Shigella(志贺氏菌), and E. Coli(大肠杆菌) may cause diarrheal illnesses. Pseudomonas Aeruginosa(绿脓杆菌) may cause an ear infection called swimmer’s ear and also a skin infection called “hot tub rash(热浴池皮疹),” that is usually associated with very warm pools and spas.

While keeping the correct chlorine and ph levels will minimize (7)water-borne illness, prevention is also a good idea. Keep diapered children in the water for only brief periods and keep sick people out of the water altogether. And, don’t ever swallow pool water.

译文：

和细菌游泳

每个人都喜欢游泳池。但是在一般的后院和游泳池的水有多清洁呢?如果你相信氯可以制服细菌，那么接下来的就会让你惊奇。

氯和其它的消毒剂的确有助于清洁水，但是一些细菌在保护很好的水池里仍然可以存活。列如：隐孢子虫可能在池水中生活很多天。隐孢子虫能引起腹泻，并且会从进入泳池的被感染病人或者带尿布孩子的身上被冲刷下来。如果你吞下被感染的池水，也会生病。

其它的细菌可能在氯化池里生存几分钟或者几个小时：鞭毛虫，志贺氏菌，和大肠杆菌可能引起腹泻。绿脓杆菌可能引起游泳性耳炎的耳朵感染以及热浴池皮疹的皮肤感染。热浴池皮疹通常与非常温暖的水池和温泉有关。

尽管保持正确的氯和pH值能够减少通过水传播的疾病，可是预防也是一个好主意。保持仍带尿布的孩子在水中只停留短暂的时间，使病人远离水。并且永远不要吞下池水。

Notes:

(1)chlorine ['kl :ri:n] n.氯

(2)disinfectants n.消毒剂;消毒水;消毒乐

(3)cryptosporidium [,kript u'sp ridi m] n.隐孢子虫

(4)diarrheal [,dai 'ri:ik] adj.腹泻的

An increase in diarrheal illness in New York City followed a massive power outage in 2003.

2003年纽约市大规模供电中断，造成了当地腹泻病症的大量增加。

(5)rinse [rins] vt.漱;冲洗掉;漂净 n.冲洗;漂洗;染发剂;染发 vi.冲洗掉;漂净

She rinsed her hands quickly before eating.

她吃东西以前很快洗了一下手。

(6)diaper ['dai p ] n.尿布 vt.给孩子换尿布

cloth diapered two kids and LOVED every minute of it.

我的两个小孩都使用尿布，而且非常喜欢。

(7)water-borne adj.水传播的;由水浮起的;水运的;饮水传染的

It tells the research and use of water-borne alkyd resin coatings and points out its prospects in vehicle and architecture fields.

醇酸树脂水性化的研究及在车辆建筑领域中的应用，指出水性醇酸树脂涂料的发展前景。

托福考试阅读材料2

Older staff are more productive than their younger colleagues, say researchers.

有研究显示，与年轻的员工相比，年长的员工的工作效率更高。

More mature members of staff may be weaker and less agile than their junior counterparts, but they more than compensate with their greater experience, ability to work in teams, and success at coping when things go wrong.

更加成熟的员工在反应的敏捷度上可能弱于资历浅的年轻员工，但他们丰富的经验却弥补了这一点，这点在与团队的合作上，以及在处理工作发生错误时表现得尤为明显。

The researchers say: ‘While older workers make more errors, perhaps due to declining physical attributes, they hardly make any severe errors, perhaps due to more experience.

研究者说：“尽管年长的员工或许会犯更多的错误，这也许是与他们体能下降有关，但他们却很少犯错，这又与他们丰富的工作经验不无关系。”

‘It is experience that prevents severe errors.’

“正是工作经验防止了错误的发生。”

The scientists who studied production lines at a Mercedes-Benz truck factory in southern Germany also found that younger, more highly educated workers were less productive than those who had fewer qualifications – perhaps because the educated workers got bored more easily.

科学家们在位于德国南部的奔驰汽车生产工厂中发现，那些年轻的受教育程度更高的工人其实在生产效率上海不如那些条件并不这样有效的员工，尽管有教育的员工对工作上手更快。

The researchers, from the University of Mannheim, said their findings debunked the idea that older workers should be made redundant to boost productivity.

从曼海姆大学的研究人员表示，他们的发现证明了年长员工的工作效率其实更高。

They write: ‘In many countries, lower productivity among older workers is used as a motivation for early retirement policies.

他们说，“在世界上的很多国家，抱怨年老员工工作效率低下通常是劝道他们提前退休的理由。”

‘If this were true, the ageing populations in many developed countries would have negative effects on overall productivity. These results cast doubt on such beliefs.’

“如果我们的想法是正确的，那么在很多发达国家中的老龄人口将对于社会的整体创造力产生负面影响。但研究的结果却与这样的观点背道而驰。”

The researchers argue that in sectors where physical strength is less important than in manufacturing, such as in the service sector, it is likely that older workers are even more productive.

研究者们认为，体能再现在生产中所占的重要性正在降低，例如在服务业中，年长员工的工作效率更高。

The researchers also found that a higher proportion of women in the workforce is bad for productivity in young teams and good in old teams.

研究者们还发现，在年轻的团队中，女性所占比例过高将对效率产生反作用，但这样的情况在年长的团队中刚好相反。

They say women make fewer errors, but young male workers get distracted, and are likely to make more errors, if women are in the team.

他们表示，女性出错的几率更低，但却会使得年轻的男性员工分心，团队中若有女性的存在，会使得他们更容易出错。

托福考试阅读材料3

In a spirit of gratitude and giving back to the parents who raised them, Bill and Jackie Merz's daughters have extended a generous invitation.

"They both live in Chicago now," said Bill Merz, 75, a retired Sacramento State psychology professor. "One was willing to put an extra floor on her house and install an elevator for us so we could live there. The other wanted to convert her basement for us.

"I told them we'd have somebody shoot us before we did that."

The Merzes, who live in their own home at Eskaton Village Roseville, adore their extended, close-knit family, which also includes two sons in California and 11 grandchildren. But the idea of living with the kids in their older age leaves them cold.

"My first reaction was, 'I don't want you telling me what to do,'" said Jackie Merz, who is also 75 and a retired teacher and counselor.

Most older adults tend to be a bit more euphemistic about it: Typically, they say that they don't want to be a burden to their kids, or that they don't want to impose. But statistics show a plainer truth. In huge numbers, seniors relish their freedom, and they want to live on their own as long as they can.

In the Sacramento region, US census figures show that almost three-fourths of people 65 and older live in same-generation (as opposed to multigenerational) households. National figures are even higher, with nearly 80 percent of older adults living in their own households – more than triple the number from the 1940s.

A recent survey from the research firm Gallup & Robinson highlights that sense of independence. While 53 percent of people below age 65 said they would take in an aging parent who needed their help, only a quarter of people older than 65 said they would accept an invitation to live with their grown children.

Those attitudes fly in the face of a stubborn cultural cliché, in which the grandparents, kids and grandkids grow older together under one roof – a holdover from the days when there was no choice but for the generations to live together, like it or not.

"I think the stereotype exists because we continually look retrospectively," said Bill Merz. "It becomes a museum piece. Look at TV shows and movies about Christmas, the nuclear family they show.

"It hasn't been that way since World War II. GIs didn't come back from the war and move to Mom and Dad's neighborhood. They moved to the suburbs or across the country."

译文：

比尔?默茨和杰基?默茨夫妇的女儿们一心想要感谢和回报父母的养育之恩，对他们慷慨相邀。

“她们两个现在都住在芝加哥，”现年75岁的比尔?默茨说。他曾是萨拉门托州立大学的心理学教授，现已退休。“一个想要在她家的房子里加一层，给我们装上电梯，这样我们就能住在那儿了。另一个想把地下室改装给我们住。”

“我告诉她们如果要这样，还不如毙了我们。”

默茨夫妇住在他们艾斯卡顿村罗萨维尔区自己的家中，非常热爱他们紧密团结的大家庭，除了两个女儿，他们还有两个住在加利福尼亚的儿子和11个孙子和孙女。但想到自己的晚年要和孩子们住在一起，他们感到很不快。

现年75岁的杰基?默茨说：“我的第一反应是：我不需要你来告诉我怎么做。”她曾是一名辅导教师，现在也已退休。

多数老人对此的态度会委婉一些。通常，他们会说他们不愿成为孩子的负担，或他们不想强行要求孩子接纳他们。但数据却更直白地反应了真相。有相当多的老人很享受他们当下的自由状态，想尽可能地自己生活。

在美国萨拉门托州，人口普查数据显示，65岁以上的老人当中有近四分之三和同代人一起居住，而不是多世同堂。全国范围内这一比例甚至更高，将近80%的老人住在自己的房子里——比上世纪40年代这一数据的三倍还要高。

盖洛普暨罗宾逊调查公司最近的一项调查便凸显了这种自立感。65岁以下的人有53%表示他们愿意与需要他们帮助的年迈父亲或母亲同住，而65岁以上的人只有四分之一表示会接受其成年子女的邀请与之同住。

这种态度公然挑战了顽固的传统文化观念。在旧观念里，祖父母，子女，孙子和孙女应该在同一屋檐下生活，成长，老去，这是从远古时代遗留下来的传统——那时，无论喜欢还是不喜欢，人们没有选择，只能多代同堂。

“我觉得这种老思想仍然存在是因为我们总是在追溯过去，”比尔?默茨说，“这玩意儿已经是博物馆里的古董了。看看电视和电影里核心家庭是怎么过圣诞节的。”

“自从二战以来人们就不那样生活了。士兵们从战场归来后，并没有搬到父母的住宅区里。他们到郊区去居住，或在全国各地落脚。”

托福考试阅读材料4

Most of us are familiar with calluses.

These extra-tough patches of skin are generally quite useful–we might even say handy–because they act like a kind of natural armor, protecting areas of skin that get an unusual amount of wear and tear. Have you ever wondered exactly what a callus is, or how it forms on your skin?

Callus formation is triggered by pressure or abrasion. The heel of your foot as it rubs inside your shoe, or the palm of your hand if you’re doing a lot of manual labor are good examples of this.

While it might feel like a callus is something extra, added to your skin, it’s actually just a build-up of what’s already there.

Here’s How It Works

Your skin has a number of layers of different types of cells.

The outermost is a layer of hardened, dead cells. This top layer is usually about twenty-five cells thick, and it constantly replaces itself as the outermost cells flake off to be replaced by new hardened, dead cells underneath.

All About Friction

If your skin is subject to an unusual amount of friction, this layer of dead cells increases. New dead cells are added faster than the old ones slough away. This can build up the outer layer from twenty-five cells thick to over a hundred cells thick. You’ve grown a callus.

While calluses are generally useful, if the process continues unchecked a callus can thicken into a cone-shaped structure called a corn. These super calluses can be quite painful, and may require the attention of a doctor.

译文

对于“老茧”，我们都很熟悉。

这些皮肤上突出的硬皮是很有用的，也可以说是方便，因为他们扮演着保护常磨损皮肤的天然盔甲的角色。你是否思考过什么是老茧?他又是怎样形成的?

老茧是由压力和摩擦而形成。脚后跟的茧是由其在鞋里摩擦而形成，正如手茧是在大量的劳动过程中形成。

尽管看起来似乎是皮肤上多出的部分，然而事实是已经存在的皮肤角质的累积。

形成过程

皮肤是由若干层不同类型的皮肤构成。

表层是一些坏死的硬细胞，通常有25个细胞那么厚，表层细胞不断的脱落，取而代之的是下层硬的坏死细胞，由此而完成自我更替过程。

一切皆由摩擦引起

假如皮肤受到不寻常量的摩擦，这层坏死细胞将会增加，新的坏死细胞增长速度比旧细胞脱落的速度快，这就致使皮肤表层的厚度增加到100个细胞那么厚，由此，老茧便形成。

虽然一般来讲，茧是有益的，但如不控制其过程，老茧厚度就会增加到被称作鸡眼的锥形结构，那样就会很疼，甚至需要去看医生。