新概念英语第四册48课-课文生词译文.pdf

Unit 1Lesson 1Finding fossil man 发现化石人First listen and then answer the following question.听录音，然后回答以下问题Why are legends handed down by storytellers useful?We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East,where people firstlearned to write.But there are some parts of the word where even now people cannot write.Theonly way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas-legends handed downfrom one generation of another.These legends are useful because they can tell us somethingabout migrations of people who lived long ago,but none could write down what they did.Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living inthe Pacific Islands came from.The sagas of these people explain that some of them came fromIndonesia about 2,000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas,if theyhad any,are forgotten.So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to findout where the first modern men came from.Fortunately,however,ancient men made tools of stone,especially flint,because this iseasier to shape than other kinds.They may also have used wood and skins,but these have rottedaway.Stone does not decay,and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones ofthe men who made them have disappeared without trace.ROBIN PLACE Finding fossil manNew words and expressions 生词和短语fossil man(title)ad j.化石人recountv.叙述sagan.英雄故事legendn.传说，传奇migrationn.迁移，移居anthropologistn.人类学家archaeologistn.考古学家ancestorn.祖先Polynesianadj,波利尼西亚（中太平洋之一群岛）的Indonesian.印度尼西亚flintn.燧石rotn.烂掉参考译文我们从书籍中可读到5,000年前近东发生的事情，那里的人最早学会了写字。

但直到现在，世界上有些地方，人们还不会书写他们保存历史的唯一办法是将历史当作传说讲述，由讲述人一代接一代地将史实描述为传奇故事口传下来人类学家过去不清楚如今生活在太平洋诸岛上的波利尼西亚人的祖先来自何方，当地人的传说却告诉人们：其中一部分是约在2,000年前从印度尼西亚迁来的但是，和我们相似的原始人生活的年代太久远了，因此，有关他们的传说既使有如今也失传了于是，考古学家们既缺乏历史记载，又无口头传说来帮助他们弄清最早的“现代人”是从哪里来的然而，幸运的是，远古人用石头制作了工具，特别是用燧石，因为燧石较之其他石头更容易成形他们也可能用过木头和兽皮，但这类东西早已腐烂殆尽石头是不会腐烂的因此，尽管制造这些工具的人的骨头早已荡然无存，但远古时代的石头工具却保存了下来Lesson 2Spare that spicier不要伤害蜘蛛First listen and then answer the following question.听录音，然后回答以下问题How much of each year do spiders spend killing insects?Why,you may wonder,should spiders be our friends?Because they destroy so manyinsects,and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the human race.Insects would makeit impossible for us to live in the world;they would devour all our crops and kill our flocks andherds,if it were not for the protection we get from insect-eating animals.We owe a lot to thebirds and beasts who eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the numberdestroyed by spiders.Moreover,unlike some of the other insect eaters,spiders never do theharm to us or our belongings.Spiders are not insects,as many people think,nor even nearly related to them.One cantell the difference almost at a glance,for a spider always has eight legs and insect never morethan six.How many spiders are engaged in this work no our behalf?One authority on spidersmade a census of the spiders in grass field in the south of England,and he estimated that therewere more than 2,250,000 in one acre;that is something like 6,000,000 spiders of different kindson a football pitch.Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects.It is impossible tomake more than the wildest guess at how many they kill,but they are hungry creatures,notcontent with only three meals a day.It has been estimated that the weight of all the insectsdestroyed by spiders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all thehuman beings in the country.T.H.GILLESPLE Spare that spider from The ListenerNew words and expressionsbeastn.野兽censusn.统计数字acren.英亩contentad j.满足的参考译文你可能会觉得奇怪，蜘蛛怎么会是我们的朋友呢？因为它们能消灭那么多的昆虫,其中包括一些人类的大敌，要不是人类受一些食虫动物的保护，昆虫就会使我们无法在地球上生活下去，昆虫会吞食我们的全部庄稼，杀死我们的成群的牛羊。

我们要十分感谢那些吃昆虫的鸟和兽，然而把它们所杀死的昆虫全部加在一起也只相当于蜘蛛所消灭的一小部分此外，蜘蛛不同于其他食虫动物，它们丝毫不危害我们和我们的财物许多人认为蜘蛛是昆虫，但它们不是昆虫，甚至与昆虫毫无关系人们几乎一眼就能看出二者的差异，因为蜘蛛都是8 条腿，而昆虫的腿从不超过6 条有多少蜘蛛在为我们效力呢？一位研究蜘蛛的权威对英国南部一块草坪上的蜘蛛作了一次调查他估计每英亩草坪里有2 2 5 万多只蜘蛛这就是说，在一个足球场上约有600万只不同种类的蜘蛛蜘蛛至少有半年在忙于吃昆虫它们一年中消灭了多少昆虫，我们简直无法猜测，它们是吃不饱的动物，不满意一日三餐据估计，在英国蜘蛛一年里所消灭昆虫的重量超过这个国家人口的总重量Lesson 3Matterhorn man马特霍恩山区人First listen and then answer the following question.听录音，然后回答以下问题What was the main objective of early mountain climbers?Modern alpinists try to climb mountains by a route which will give them good sport,and the more difficult it is,the more highly it is regarded.In the pioneering days,however;thiswas not the case at all.The early climbers were looking for the easiest way to the top,becausethe summit was the prize they sought,especially if it and never been attained before.It is truethat during their explorations they often faced difficulties and dangers of the most perilousnature,equipped in a manner with would make a modern climber shudder at the thought,butthey did not go out of their way to court such excitement.They had a single aim,a solitary goal-the top!It is hard for us to realize nowadays how difficult it was for。