最經典的10篇英語文章 英語口語文章( 二 )


Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects. It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill, but they are hungry creatures, not content with only three meals a day. It has been estimated that the weight of all the insects destroyed by spiders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all the human beings in the country.
你可能會覺得奇怪 ,  蜘蛛怎么會是我們的朋友呢?因為它們能消滅那么多的昆蟲 , 其中包括一些人類的大敵 , 要不是人類受一些食蟲動物的保護 , 昆蟲就會使我們無法在地球上生活下去 , 昆蟲會吞食我們的全部莊稼 , 殺死我們的成群的牛羊 。我們要十分感謝那些吃昆蟲的鳥和獸 , 然而把它們所殺死的昆蟲全部加在一起也只相當于蜘蛛所消滅的一小部分 。此外 , 蜘蛛不同于其他食蟲動物 , 它們絲毫不危害我們和我們的財物 。
許多人認為蜘蛛是昆蟲 , 但它們不是昆蟲 , 甚至與昆蟲毫無關系 。人們幾乎一眼就能看出二者的差異 , 因為蜘蛛都是8條腿 , 而昆蟲的腿從不超過6條 。
有多少蜘蛛在為我們效力呢?一位研究蜘蛛的權威對英國南部一塊草坪上的蜘蛛作了一次調查 。他估計每英畝草坪里有225萬多只蜘蛛 。這就是說 , 在一個足球場上約有600萬只不同種類的蜘蛛 。蜘蛛至少有半年在忙于吃昆蟲 。它們一年中消滅了多少昆蟲 , 我們簡直無法猜測 , 它們是吃不飽的動物 , 不滿意一日三餐 。據估計 , 在英國蜘蛛一年里所消滅昆蟲的重量超過這個國家人口的總重量 。
3. Youth 青年

最經典的10篇英語文章 英語口語文章


People are always talking about 'the problem of youth'. If there is one -- which I take leave to doubt -- then it is older people who create it, not the young themselves. Let us get down to fundamentals and agree that the young are after all human beings -- people just like their elders. There is only one difference between an old man and a young one: the young man has a glorious future before him and the old one has a splendid future behind him: and maybe that is where the rub is.
When I was a teenager, I felt that I was just young and uncertain -- that I was a new boy in a huge school, and I would have been very pleased to be regarded as something so interesting as a problem. For one thing, being a problem gives you a certain identity, and that is one of the things the young are busily engaged in seeking.
I find young people exciting. They have an air of freedom, and they not a dreary commitment to mean ambitions or love of comfort. They are not anxious social climbers, and they have no devotion to material things. All this seems to me to link them with life, and the origins of things. It's as if they were, in some sense, cosmic beings in violent and lovely contrast with us suburban creatures. All that is in my mind when I meet a young person. He may be conceited, ill-mannered, presumptuous or fatuous, but I do not turn for protection to dreary cliches about respect of elders -- as if mere age were a reason for respect. I accept that we are equals, and I will argue with him, as an equal, if I think he is wrong.
人們總是在談論“青年問題” 。如果這個問題存在的話 -- 請允許我對此持懷疑態度 -- 那么 , 這個問題是由老年人而不是青年人造成的 。讓我們來認真研究一些基本事實:承認青年人和他們的長輩一樣也是人 。老年人和青年人只有一個區別:青年人有光輝燦爛的前景 , 而老年人的輝煌已成為過去 。問題的癥結恐怕就在這里 。
我十幾歲時 , 總感到自己年輕 , 有些事拿不準 -- 我是一所大學里的一名新生 , 如果我當時真的被看成像一個問題那樣有趣 , 我會感到很得意的 。因為這至少使我得到了某種承認 , 這正是年輕人所熱衷追求的 。

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