阅读理解第二篇：

Squeezed Into Smaller Spaces, Koalas Now Face Deadly Disease（出自：http://www.nytimes.com）

The koala, one of Australia's most treasured creatures, is in trouble.

Faced with habitat loss, climate change and bacterial disease, koalas are being pushed into smaller and smaller regions of the country. In Queensland, the vast state in Australia's northeastern corner, surveys suggest that from 2001 to 2008, their numbers dropped as much as 45 percent in urban areas and 15 percent in bushland.

And while climate change and habitat loss are affecting many other uniquely Australian animals, too -- from birds and frogs to marsupials like wombats, wallabies and bandicoots -- it is a bacterial infection that is worrying many scientists about the fate of the koala.

''Disease is a somewhat silent killer and has the very real potential to finish koala populations in Queensland,'' said Dr. Amber Gillett, a veterinarian at the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital in Beerwah, Queensland.

The killer is chlamydia, a class of bacteria far better known for causing venereal disease in humans than for devastating koala populations. Recent surveys in Queensland show that chlamydia has caused symptoms in up to 50 percent of the state's wild koalas, with probably even more infected but not showing symptoms.

The bacteria -- transmitted during birth, through mating and possibly through fighting -- come in two different strains, neither the same as the human form. The first, Chlamydia pecorum, is causing a vast majority of health problems in Queensland's koalas; the second, C. pneumoniae, is less common.

Unlike C. pecorum, the pneumoniae strain can jump to other species, but so far there is no evidence that it has spread from koalas to humans or vice versa.

Chlamydia causes a host of symptoms in koalas, including eye infections, which can lead to blindness, making it difficult for them to find scarce eucalyptus leaves, their primary food source. The bacteria can also lead to respiratory infections, along with cysts that can make female koalas infertile.

The epidemic has been particularly severe in Queensland, where nearly all koalas are infected with koala retrovirus, said Dr. Gillett. This retrovirus is an H.I.V.-like infection that suppresses the koala's immune system and interferes with its ability to fight off chlamydia.

''In southern koala populations, where koala retrovirus is much less prevalent, normal immune functions tend to result in fewer cases of chlamydia,'' Dr. Gillett said.

Treating chlamydia in wild koalas is a challenge, she said. The disease is so devastating that only a small percentage of the animals can be treated successfully and returned to the wild. And infected females often become infertile -- a condition that cannot be reversed, so future population growth is affected as well.

There is no treatment available for koala retrovirus, but researchers are working to test a vaccine that would help prevent further spread of chlamydia infection in Queensland's koalas.

A study published in 2010 in The American Journal of Reproductive Immunology found that this vaccine is both safe and effective in healthy female koalas. Further work is being done to test it in koalas that are already infected.

Peter Timms, a professor of microbiology at the Queensland University of Technology who is leading the effort to test the chlamydia vaccine in koalas, is hopeful that there will be another trial this year to test the vaccine in captive male koalas, followed by wild koalas. If all goes well, plans can be set in motion to distribute the vaccine more widely.

''It's going to be impossible to vaccinate all wild koalas,'' he said.

In Australia, there is no national plan to save the koala; it is up to each region to establish management plans for its koala population. Therefore, once the vaccine is shown to be completely safe and effective, Dr. Timms suggests targeting specific, threatened populations where capturing and releasing koalas would be practical, like those bordered on all sides by housing developments and roads.

Dr. Timms is also working on a single-dose form. of the vaccine to make it more feasible to vaccinate wild koalas.Another possibility would be to make vaccine distribution a routine part of treatment for the thousands of koalas brought into care centers every year after they are injured by cars or dogs, Dr. Timms said.

While it is a combination of problems that are affecting the wild koala population, many experts believe this vaccine would be an important step in helping koalas survive longer. It may buy enough time to give researchers a chance to solve some of the other problems facing Australia's koalas.

''In situations where you combine habitat pressure, domestic dog attacks and car hits with severe chlamydial disease, the outcome for koalas is devastating,'' Dr. Gillett said.

【简析】本文主要讨论的是由于种种因素的影响，澳大利亚的考拉现在可栖息活动的地方也越来越小，这些原因包括气候变化，疾病病毒等。考拉的死亡率也不断上升，主要因素是病毒引起的，之后作者具体分析了这种病毒，并提出了各种可行的解决方案解救考拉。
阅读理解第四篇：

Mysteries of pillow time（出自：http://www.chinadaily.com.cn）

When a study released earlier this year linked sleeping pills to an increase in cancer and death rates, more than a few insomniacs probably had an even harder time getting to sleep.

Though the findings, published online in the journal BMJ, indicated only that there was a correlation between sleep aids, mortality and disease, that was little solace for Americans who filled some 60 million prescriptions for the medications last year.

"The risks of sleeping pills are real," Gayle Greene, who has been taking sleeping pills for three decades, wrote in The Times. "But so are the risks of chronic sleep loss. As the pioneering sleep scientist William Dement has argued, 'sleep is the most important predictor of how long you will live - perhaps more important than smoking, exercise or high blood pressure.'"

Ten to 20 percent of the world's population uses sleeping pills or tranquilizers, according to Global Industry Analysts, a worldwide market research firm. It estimates the global market for sleep aids will be worth $9 billion by 2015.

"It's difficult to go to a Manhattan cocktail party these days and not get roped into a discussion of someone's insomnia or the relative merits of melatonin and 'snore absorption rooms,'" Henry Alford wrote in The Times. And he recounts "a slightly defensive diatribe called 'Why I Have Recently Purchased a $60,000 Mattress.'"

Mr. Alford's mission for better slumber took him to the Benjamin Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, which has a sleep concierge and lets guests choose from 12 pillows like Buckwheat, Maternity, Lullaby, Swedish Memory and Satin Beauty. It also offers massages, snacks, white-noise machines and masks.

Parents tire their children out by getting them outside and having them run around, and maybe that's what people really need, especially as they get older. American health statistics show that more than half of adults ages 60 and over have trouble sleeping.

A 2011 study at the University of Massachusetts of 22 adults ages 65 to 81 found a strong link between physical activity and the quality of sleep, The Times reported. Better sleep did not take much, Jane Kent-Braun, a professor and physiologist who oversaw the study, told The Times. "These were people who were just out there moving around, gardening, walking the dog."

Some experts believe that the recent spike in diagnoses of attention hyperactivity disorder among children is the result of overlooked sleep disorders.

"Lack of sleep is an insult to a child's developing body and mind that can have a huge impact," Karen Bonuck, a professor of family medicine in New York and author of a study on children and sleep disorders, told The Times. "It's incredible that we don't screen for sleep problems the way we screen for vision and hearing problems."

Some believe that building mattresses out of metal with elaborate spring systems is part of the problem. Coco-Mat, which has 60 stores in 11 countries and opened a shop in Manhattan in late March, sells mattresses that are handmade in Greece, from natural materials like seaweed, horsehair, goose down, wool and coconut or cactus fibers.

"People have slept on springs for only about 50 years," Paul Elfmorfidis, Coco-Mat's founder, told The Times. "But for thousands of years before that, humanity slept on nonmetal beds."

【简析】第四篇文章是典型的医疗健康类，结合药物滥用和失眠问题。文章结构与我们老师在课堂上与同学们总结的结构基本吻合：提出问题（过度使用安眠药会引 发更严重的问题）--分析问题（失眠问题与身体状况）--解 决问题（安眠药危险，我们换枕头，换床垫），文章难度不大，生僻词汇不多，基本掌握文章结构应该就能解题。与我们以往在课上讲到医疗健康类话题中的“滥用 抗抑郁药”有换汤不换药。而我们的第五篇，又老生常谈提到“抑郁”话题，可见，我们现在的日子真的不好过，看到读中口的同学，也许下次可以直接问：“今 天，你抑郁了吗？”“今天，你吃药了吗？”

阅读理解第五篇：

18 And Under: Parents' Mental Health Is Critical to Children's Care（出自：http://www.nytimes.com）

Like many other primary care doctors, I sometimes sense the shadow of depression hovering at the edges of the exam room. I am haunted by one mother with severe postnatal depression. Years ago, I took proper care of the baby, but I missed the mother's distress, as did everyone else.

Nowadays it's increasingly clear that pediatricians, obstetrician-gynecologists and internists must be more alert. Research into postnatal depression in particular has underscored the importance of checking up on parents' mental health in the first months of a baby's life.

But a parent's depression, it turns out, can be linked to all kinds of problems, even in the lives of older children.

''Depression is an illness that feeds upon itself,'' said Dr. William Beardslee, professor of child psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who has spent his career studying depression in children and developing family interventions. ''Very often people who are depressed don't seek the care they need.''

In 2009, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council issued a report, ''Depression in Parents, Parenting, and Children,'' that summarized a large and growing body of research on the ways that parental depression can affect how people take care of their children, and how those children fare.

One in five Americans will suffer from depression at some point, noted Dr. Beardslee, who was on the committee that issued the report. ''Untreated, unrecognized parental depression can lead to negative consequences for kids,'' he said, ranging from poor school performance to increased visits to the emergency room to poorer peer relationships and adolescent depression.

Moreover, there is plenty of evidence that when depressed parents get treatment and help with their parenting, families are much better off.

Depression is certainly treatable, said Dr. Mary Jane England, a psychiatrist and professor of health policy and management at Boston University School of Public Health, who led the Institute of Medicine committee.

But, she added, ''because of stigma and lack of training of some of our primary care practitioners, we don't pick it up.''

Depression damages the interactions between parents and children, and disrupts family routines and rituals. Children with a depressed parent are themselves more likely to manifest symptoms of depression, research shows, along with other psychiatric problems and behavior. issues. They are more likely to make visits to the emergency room and more likely to be injured.

A depressed parent may have trouble following a plan of preventive care if a child has a medical problem like asthma. But higher rates of depression in parents whose children have chronic medical problems may also reflect the stress of dealing with those problems, especially for psychologically vulnerable parents.

Depression may become part of a vicious cycle in these families: An overwhelmed and depressed parent is less able to follow a complex medical regimen, and a child ends up in the emergency room or the hospital, creating more pressure and more stress for the family.

''There is a high burden of maternal depression, anxiety,'' among mothers bringing children to an emergency room, said Dr. Jacqueline M. Grupp-Phelan, a pediatric emergency room specialist at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. ''It influences their own perception of how well they can deal with their kids' problems.''

It's also become clear that there may be genetic propensities to depression. Its appearance in parent and child may in part reflect inherited vulnerabilities.

And all of that reaffirms how critical it is for primary care doctors to ask the right questions and offer diagnosis without stigma.

''Moms appreciate being asked,'' said Dr. Grupp-Phelan, who has done research on the acceptability of mental health screening. ''It may be the only time they've been asked about their depression.''

I often find myself urging mothers to pay more attention to their own medical problems and mental health. Pediatric colleagues tell stories of depressed parents who break down and cry during a child's visit, but then say they're too busy taking care of the family to get help for themselves.

I don't love the ''do it for your child's sake'' argument; I worry it suggests that the parent isn't important in her own right. But to be honest, I make that argument anyway, because it works.

''They are open to doing something about their own issues because it could help their kid, and that's a very strong hook for mothers,'' Dr. Grupp-Phelan said. And when the ''doing something'' includes a focus on the whole family, those routines and rituals and routines can be rebuilt, and there's plenty of research to show that children are resilient.

So if parents are open to being asked, and if we know that identifying depression has important benefits for our patients and their parents, why aren't we better at asking?

As a pediatrician, I tend to focus on the child, of course. Asking mental health questions of the parent can sometimes feel intrusive or invasive.

And there's the worry that even if you identify a problem, there may not be good help available. When poverty and lack of access are combined with parental depression, not surprisingly, the risks are that much greater.

And in looking for parental depression, in asking about it and discussing the risks, there may be a sense that doctors are placing blame. I think we fear that parents who are struggling with these shadows will feel accused and inadequate.

''The last thing in the world we should be doing is blaming parents,'' Dr. Beardslee said. ''We should be reaching out and offering hope.''

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.

【简析】 本文属于医疗类文章，作者作为一个儿科医生的角度思考平时大家比较容易忽略的问题，即儿童有病，很多情况下父母也会是一种原因。调查发现父母如果患有抑郁 症的话，在诸多方面都会对自己的孩子构成负面的影响，所以要解决孩子的问题，就应该先解决父母的问题，不然也是治标不治本，但是由于问题的特殊性，抑郁症 问题一直是人们的敏感话题可能会涉及到隐私，而且也会让父母感觉自己有负罪感，所以作者提出这样的问题，并思考解决方案。
阅读理解第六篇：

The invention of banking（出自：http://www.cambridge.org）

The invention of banking preceded that of coinage. Banking originated something like 4,000 years ago in Ancient Mesopotamia, in present-day Iraq, where the royal palaces and temples provided secure places for the safekeeping of grain and other commodities. Receipts came to be used for transfers not only to the original depositors but also to third parties. Eventually private houses in Mesopotamia also got involved in these banking operations, and laws regulating them were included in the code of Hammurabi, the legal code developed not long afterwards.

In Ancient Egypt too, the centralisation of harvests in state warehouses led to the development of a system of banking. Written orders for the withdrawal of separate lots of grain by owners whose crops had been deposited there for safety and convenience, or which had been compulsorily deposited to the credit of the king, soon became used as a more general method of payment of debts to other people, including tax gatherers, priests and traders. Even after the introduction of coinage, these Egyptian grain banks served to reduce the need for precious metals, which tended to be reserved for foreign purchases, particularly in connection with military activities.

5. In both Mesopotamia and Egypt the banking systems

A. were initially limited to transactions involving depositors.

B. were created to provide income for the king.

C. required a large staff to administer them.

D. grew out of the provision of storage facilities for food.

6. What does the writer suggest about banking?

A. It can take place without the existence of coins.

B. It is likely to begin when people are in debt.

C. It normally requires precious metals.

D. It was started to provide the state with an income.

【简析】再次证明出题老师偷懒了，再一次直接用了Cambridge Certificate上面用的阅读，尽管我们还没有看到题目，但根据以往的经验，题目一定是无修改照搬。原文有3个extracts,但现在老师能搜索 到的只有其中一个extract,讲的银行的起源；既然是起源，一定跟古代有关，也一定不会跟钱有关，但文章信息还是很明确：where the royal palaces and temples provided secure places for the safekeeping of grain and other commodities./ the centralization of harvests in state warehouses led to the development of a system of banking.两道题，一道细节，一道推断，也符合这种类型文章的出题风格。
Passage Translation E-C:

【原文】

For years, many Asian-Americans have been convinced that it's harder for them to gain admission to the nation's top colleges. Studies show that Asian-Americans meet these colleges' admissions standards far out of proportion to their 6 percent representation in the U.S. population, and that they often need test scores hundreds of points higher than applicants from other ethnic groups to have an equal chance of admission. Critics say these numbers, along with the fact that some top colleges with race-blind admissions have double the Asian percentage of Ivy League schools, prove the existence of discrimination.

The way it works, the critics believe, is that Asian-Americans are evaluated not as individuals, but against the thousands of other ultra-achieving Asians who are stereotyped as boring academic robots.

Of course, not all Asian-Americans fit this stereotype. They are not always obedient hard workers who get top marks.  Their economic status, ancestral countries and customs vary. But compared with American society in general, Asian-Americans have developed a much stronger emphasis on intense academic preparation as a path to a handful of the very best schools.

【参考译文】

多年来，许多美籍亚裔深信在美国要想被顶尖级名校录取，他们需要付出更加艰辛的努力。研究表明，美籍亚裔中达到这些大学的入学要求的人数的比例与他们所占 美国总人口的百分之六的比例不相称，并且要想获得均等的入学机会，他们往往要考出比其他国家学生高出几百分的成绩。事实表明一些名牌大学在实行无种族歧视 的招生政策之后，使常春藤联盟亚裔学生的招生比例翻了一番。评论家指出这些数据恰巧反映出歧视依然存在。

评论家们认为，这种方式之所以行得通，是因为美籍亚裔学生并非作为个体被评估，而是被参照了许多做法极端的亚洲人而评估的，这些人为达到目的，刻板陈腐，像学术机器。

当然，并非每个亚裔学生都是这种类型的。有些人并非寒窗苦读，名列前茅。他们的家庭条件，血统，风俗习惯都不尽相同。但是总体来说，与一般的美国学生相比，亚裔学生更重视紧张的学业准备，这也是他们挤进那些顶尖名校的必经之路。

【评析】

这篇文章略有难度。整段由三个长句组成。因此翻译时要理清思路，弄清句子前后的逻辑关系。然后再下笔。

主要是第二个句子，数据进行比较。一方是亚裔美籍能达到这些名校入学标准所占比例，另一方是亚裔美籍人 占美国总人口的比例6%，弄清这个关系，这句就不难翻译了。”far out of”指的是“与…(很)不成比例，与…(很)不相称”。

第二个句子后半句，比较的是亚裔美籍人入这些名校的分数要比其他国家的人入这些学校要高出很多分，比较的是“不同民族不同分数”这样一个概念。“higher than”关键词

最后一句话，要注意找准句子主干，即“Critics say these numbers prove the existence of discrimination.”
Passage Translation C-E:

【原文】

近代以来，亚洲经历了曲折和艰难的发展历程。亚洲人们为改变自己的命运，始终以不屈的意志和艰辛的奋斗开辟前进道路。今天，人们所看到的亚洲发展成就，是勤劳智慧的亚洲人民不屈不挠、锲而不舍奋斗的结果。

亚洲人民深知，世界上没有放之四海而皆准的发展模式，也没有一成不变的发展道路，亚洲人民勇于变革创新，不断开拓进取，探索和开辟适应时代潮流，符合自身实际的发展道路，为经济社会发展打开了广阔前景。

【译文】

In modern times, Asia experienced twists and turns in its development. To change their destiny, the people of Asia have been forging ahead in an indomitable spirit and with hard struggle. Asia's development achievements today are the result of the persistent efforts of the industrious and talented Asian people.

The people of Asia are fully aware that there is no ready model or unchanging path of development that is universally applicable. They never shy away from reform and innovation. Instead, they are committed to exploring and finding development paths that are in line with the trend of the times and their own situations, and have opened up bright prospects for economic and social development.

【评析】

文中较难处理的句子有：“亚洲人们为改变自己的命运，始终以不屈的意志和艰辛的奋斗开辟前进道路。”其中“亚洲人们……开辟前进道路”是主干结构，“为改 变自己的命运”表示目的，可以译成不定式to change their destiny放在句子前面，“以不同的意志和艰辛的奋斗”译成介词短语放在句尾。“放之四海而皆准的发展模式”的中心词是“模式”，修饰语“放之四海而 皆准的”意为“普遍适用的”，可译为定语从句放在中心词后。最后一个句子较长，可根据句意进行拆分，确定主干词，对语序进行调整，以流畅的英文表达出来。