2020年公共英語考試三級閱讀文章難點解析(一)

Ecosphere thinking

Although in theory every educated person knows that the world is more than people, resources, and a vague environment to be protected, the very fact of seeing it as one spherical air-water-land system gives it a new and different reality. From a vantage point outside our home, a revealing perspective has shown us the planet for what it really is; a ball of living star dust, a four-and-one-billion year old miracle.

Perhaps the strange human desire to fly away from the planet, to “slip the surly bonds of earth,” is a necessary impulse for discovering who we are. Perhaps we can never be satisfied on earth until we have traveled away in space and come back home, back to our roots, to where we belong.

To the question, “what is the world?” the answers still tend to be ambiguous. In the traditional sense, the earth remains the supportive environment for humanity; merely the means for enhancement of the one animal “made in God’s image.” To physical science that has denatured reality the world is a material place of molecules and atoms, of solids, liquids and gases, of atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and biosphere. For biological science it is a scene wherein mechanistic organisms compete for survival, driven by selfish genes. To the economist it is raw materials and resources, valueless until transformed by the “innovative genius of man” into marketable commodities. There are our humanistic homo-centred legacies—no longer reasonable.

In the profounder ecological sense, the world is now known as a unity. The various spheres—atom, hydro, litho, and bio—are intertwined and related, both in the historical evolutionary sense and in the present functional sense. Organic tissues of living things are fashioned from the elements of air, water and soil which in turn bear the imprints of life. Thus, the nutrient composition of sea water is maintained by organisms which also stabilize the improbable composition of the atmosphere. Plants and animals formed the limestone in mountains whose sediments make our bones. Our blood and sea water are akin. On the earth’s surface the artificial divisions that we have made between living and non-living, biotic and abiotic, organic and inorganic, are not only false but mischievous.

The reality of the world is not people and separate “other things”. Nor is the earth a machine whose secrets lie in its fragmented parts. It is — beyond all understanding—an integrated ecosphere of marvelous creativity.

The root meaning of “eco” is “home”, and the revealed ecosphere is the home-sphere from which all life came and in which all life exists. Thanks to NASA, ecology—which means study of the home—has had its eyes opened to the reality of the Home of all homes.

Ecology needs to escape its obsession with organisms—the legitimate subject matter of biology—and fasten its attention on the larger whole in which organisms, including people, function as parts. Ecology’s natural subject of interest is the earth-home, the ecosphere, not its fragmentary compositional parts. Ecology studies the whole; biology studies the organic constituents of the whole that are no more important than air, water and soil.

Dialogues /monologues:

1、Geography has been integrating many different subjects in its approach.

has been integrating：現在完成進行時

現在完成進行時與現在完成時皆可表示動作對現在產生的結果，但前者所表示的結果是直接的，而后者所表示的則是最后結果。如：

A：Be careful! John has been painting the door.

B ：John has painted the door.

A句表示約翰剛剛把門刷漆過，現在油漆還末干，所以得小心。

B句則無此含義，油漆可能已經干了。

2、Many schools have eliminated geography in favor of more math and science courses.

In favor of：

(1)贊成某人/某事;支持某人/某事。如：

Was he in favor of the death penalty? (他贊成死刑嗎?)

(2)(指支票)以某人/某部門為收款人。如：

Cheques should be written in favor of the Red Cross.

支票上請寫明以紅十字會為收款人。

3、SoI has a vital social cause other than recovering costs.

other than

(1) 除了(表示所說的不包括在內)。如：

She has no close friends other than him. (她除了他之外沒有好朋友。)

(2) 不同于，而不。如：

I have never known him behave other than selfish. (我只知道他自私自利。)

4、At least, if someone like moved to your school and they’re like “I’m from whatever country” and you don’t know where that is ,it’s kind of sad.

參考譯文:

從理論上講，所有受過教育的人都知道不光是人、資源和一個模糊的需要保護的環(huán)境，把世界看作是一個空氣—水—土地為整體的球體會賦予它一個全新的、不同的實際意義。從地球以外的有利地位來看，地球是一個有生命的、虛無縹緲的球體，一個有著50億年生命的奇跡。

人類有一個奇怪的想法，那就是從地球上遠走高飛以掙脫這個乖戾的星球?；蛟S這個沖動對于發(fā)現我們究竟是誰是必要的。也許我們永遠不會對地球感到滿足，直到我們去太空旅行一圈再回來，回到我們的根，回到這個我們從屬的地方。

對于“什么是地球?”這個問題的答案還不明確。從傳統(tǒng)的感覺上講，地球仍是給予人類支持的環(huán)境;它的作用僅僅是增強人類這種“以上帝形象創(chuàng)造的”動物。對于具有變性的物理學來說世界是由分子、原子，固體、液體、氣體，大氣圈、水圈、巖石圈和生物圈組成的物質世界;對于生物學家來說，世界是一個有機理性的有機物為了生存而展開競爭的地方，這種競爭是被自私所驅;對經濟學家來說，地球是原材料和資源，這些資源如果不被人類天才般的創(chuàng)造力轉化為市場商品的話就毫無價值。這些都是以人類為中心的人本主義思想的遺留物，已經不再合理。

站在深刻的生態(tài)學角度，世界現在被看作是一個整體。各個圈——大氣圈，水圈，巖石圈，生物圈——都是相互依賴相互聯(lián)系的，不管是以過去進化的角度來看還是以現在功能的角度來看。生物休的有機經組織是由空氣、水和土壤中的元素構成，這些元素都帶著生命的印記。海水中的養(yǎng)分保存在有機物中，有機物對大氣層奇異的構成也有穩(wěn)定作用。山上的植物和動物形成石灰?guī)r，石灰?guī)r的沉積物構成人體骨骼。我們的血液和海水相近。在地球表面，我們對生物和非生物、生命體和非生命體、有機物和無機物所作的人為劃分不光是錯誤而且是有害的。

真正的世界不是人類和分開的“其他東西”;也不是一臺機器，這臺機器的秘密在于所分裂的各個部分。真正的世界——不同于所有的理解——是一個完整的，充滿了各種絕妙創(chuàng)造物的生物圈。

“eco”的根本意思是“家”。裸露的生物圈就是家，我們從這個家里來也在這個家里生存。多虧了美國宇航局，生態(tài)學——也就是研究我們的家園——已經注意到我們這個大家庭的現實。

生態(tài)學需要逃離有機生物的束縛——有機物是生物學的正規(guī)課題——而將注意力放在更大范圍上。有機生物，包括人，只是這個范圍的一部分。生態(tài)學本質主題的興趣在于地球——我們的家、生物圈，而不是分裂開的各個組成部分。生態(tài)學研究的是整體;生物學研究的是這個整體里的有機成分，這些有機成分并不比空氣、水和土壤更重要。